telephone harassment over a bill I do not owe.
Complaint
Diane Davis White
Country: United States
What do you do when you start receiving constant phone calls from a company
claiming you owe them money? Yeah, its 'only' $14.95, but I don't owe it,
so I'll be danged if I'm going to pay it. Isn't there a law against this kind of harassment? I get up to a dozen calls a day, beginning at 7:00 am and running through through 10:00 pm
If I don't answer, they tie up my message machine with long-winded messages
that accuse me of theft and threatening my credit rating.
Who are these jerks? and more importantly, HOW CAN WE STOP THEM?
http://www.qtbill.com/ is their website.
Customer Support - online Sales or Customer Support...or call us at 1-866-9-qtbill (1-866-978-2455)
You don't get to speak to a live person at any of these numbers.
claiming you owe them money? Yeah, its 'only' $14.95, but I don't owe it,
so I'll be danged if I'm going to pay it. Isn't there a law against this kind of harassment? I get up to a dozen calls a day, beginning at 7:00 am and running through through 10:00 pm
If I don't answer, they tie up my message machine with long-winded messages
that accuse me of theft and threatening my credit rating.
Who are these jerks? and more importantly, HOW CAN WE STOP THEM?
http://www.qtbill.com/ is their website.
Customer Support - online Sales or Customer Support...or call us at 1-866-9-qtbill (1-866-978-2455)
You don't get to speak to a live person at any of these numbers.
Comments
So, if you want to complain about the price of a collect call you should contact the long distance company that set those rates.
The price for any product or service, including collect calls, that are billed by QTBill is always quoted to the person setting up the account for billing, so there are no surprises. The recipient must then press one to acknowledge and accept the rates before setting up an account or using their existing QTBill account.
If you cannot make the payment on your account by the due date, please contact service@qtbill.com and they will try to work with you! Don't wait, contact them before the bill is late!
Regardless, the phone number is not in the system "in error". For more information, contact the source! Email service@qtbill.com and they can explain why your cell phone is being called and also how to stop the calls!
http://www.dltlaw.com/CM/Alerts/Prerecorded-Mechanical.asp
"TCPA: Watson v. NCO Group, Inc.
The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has held that a caller could be held liable under the federal TCPA for erroneously making prerecorded or mechanical collection calls to a person who owed no debt. Watson v. NCO Group, Inc. , No. CIVA 2:06CV1502, 2006 WL 3059933 (E.D. Pa. Nov. 28, 2006).
In Watson, the plaintiff alleged that he received more than 200 prerecorded or mechanical telephone calls in a five month period from a debt service to which he owed no debt. According to the plaintiff, he spent more than 53 hours speaking with approximately 29 agents in an attempt to correct the problem. When his attempts failed, the plaintiff sued the caller and others on the theory that they violated, among other things, the TCPA’s prohibition against initiating telephone calls to residential telephone lines using an artificial or prerecorded voice to deliver a message without the prior consent of the called party. See 47 U.S.C. § 27(b)(1)(B).
The defendants filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that the debt collection calls under consideration were exempt from the TCPA. The district court, however, disagreed. According to the district court, the calls did not fall under the TCPA’s established business relationship exemption because an erroneously called non-debtor does not have such an established business relationship with a caller. The court also found that the calls did not fall under the TCPA’s exemption for commercial calls that do not adversely affect privacy rights and do not transmit an unsolicited advertisement because, according to the court, a non-debtor’s rights are in fact violated when the person is subject to repeated annoying and abusive debt collection calls that the person is powerless to stop.For these reasons, the district court denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss the plaintiff’s TCPA claim.
"
Plaintiff's attorney in "Watson v. NCO Group, Inc., et al."
http://www.fdcpalaw.net/attorneys.php
"...
Mr. Mullaney is admitted to practice law in the following jurisdiction:
Federal Courts
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania
U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey
U.S. Appeals Court for the Armed Forces
U.S. Tax Court State Courts
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
State of New Jersey
State of Maryland
Published Opinions
Watson v. NCO Group, Inc., et al., 462 F. Supp. 2d 641 (E.D. Pa. 2006), 2006 TCPA Rep. 1486 (motion to dismiss denied).
Watson v. NCO Group, Inc., et al., 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 87500 (E.D. Pa. 2006) (published), 2006 TCPA Rep. 1500 (2006) (motion for reconsideration denied).
Publications
“Protecting Non-Debtors from Artificial or Pre-recorded Telephone Calls under the FDCPA and TCPA.” The Consumer Advocate, Vol. 13, No. 4 (October 2007).
..."
http://www.bbb.org/indianapolis/business-revi ... el-in-18002764/
All businesses make mistakes. What differentiates them is how they deal with their mistakes. Whether it is your merchant customers getting erroneous phone numbers, your own failings in properly authenticating authorization, or you calling the wrong people in error, it is still your responsibility to deal with it and cease harassing those who do not owe you. If people have to go on-line to track you down, your calls already fail to responsibly handle errors generated by your business, creating a public nuisance.
All autodialed calls, and in particular recorded autodialed calls, must have a mechanism for consumers receiving such calls to contact the caller to get the calls to cease, as per FCC and FTC rules. In particular, under recently enacted FTC rules, autodialed recorded messages can only be sent with prior consumer approval, which you do not have whenever you call the wrong party.
If you call only once, you might claim a bona fide error, but by failing to provide a call-back number that reaches a live person who will remove erroneous numbers from your call list, you undeermine that defense. You have been aware of these problems for at least a year, yet complaints continue. By failing to provide an effective mechanism to quickly resolve erroneous calling problems, you are setting yourself up for the possibility of TCPA lawsuits with potential liability of $500 to $1500 per call.
Is it your intent that people receiving your calls in error should have to call BBB or the Indiana Secretary of State to find out your mailing address?
Why don't your "bills" list the name of the company you are collecting payment for, what the bill is for, and the date the amount was incurred, like normal legitimate invoices?
Bank and credit card statements normally list such information, necessary to determine the validity of any charges, or even to contact the company making the charge, if necessary.
Why are you hiding what you are billing for?
Get a copy of the police report, since it can be used to clear your son's credit report of the fraudulent account, through filing an id theft dispute under FACTA. You will also want to place a fraud alert on his credit reports to block additional possible fraudulent transactions in his name, although it is not clear that qtbill even used credit reports, which is why they allow this type of fraud to occur.
Based on other complaints, you will next start getting harassed by some debt collector. Promptly dispute any alleged debt as fraudulent, and pursue your legal options if they fail to cease collection. You should also file similar complaints against them with your state Attorney General.
If these companies fail to cease collection, or you find the fraudulent account back on your son's credit reports, contact an attorney with experience in consumer debt, FDCPA and FCRA litigation. You will want this cleared before he goes off to college to ensure it does not interfere with obtaining financing. FDCPA and FCRA allow for statutory and actual damages, as well as attorney fees and litigation costs if you win.
Paying fraudulent debts your son does not owe, even small ones, will only result in damaged credit for the next 7 years, with associated higher costs of borrowing, possibly including not being able to borrow at all, even for college.
It is more effective to pursue your legal remedies in a timely fashion, regardless of the amount, making the other party bear the cost. That is the way the system works, such as it is.
There are attorneys who do this for a living. Use them.
Governor Jerry Brown
c/o State Capitol, Suite 1173
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: (916) 445-2841
Fax: (916) 558-3160
_______
for Gavin Newsom
c/o Warren & Associates
20 Galli Drive
Suite A
Novato, CA 94949
E-mail: gavin@gavinnewsom.com
Phone: (415) 963-9240
You might try www.naca.net to find an attorney in your state.
If you receive an invoice in the mail for any unordered product or service, file a mail fraud complaint with the U.S. Postal Inspector. Sending invoices for unordered products through the U.S. Mail is a violation of postal regulations.