Harassing Collection Calls
Complaint
Sharon Marsh
Country: United States
I am not sure that this is the name of the company because it is very difficult to understand the name of the company. This company has called me 2 times and left 15 minutes of messages on my answering machine. He repeats his name (which I cannot understand) and his phone number over and over again for 15 minutes.........I called them back the first time approximately a month ago and told him do not call again, and today I received the same 15 minute message. He is not calling for me, but and I am not going to put up with the harassment. The phone number that he give to call back is 1-800 -335-0872. I DO NOT WANT ANYMORE COLLECTION CALLS. I HAVE GOOD CREDIT AND I DO NOT CARE WHO HE IS CALLING FOR HE HAS NO RIGHT TO CONTINUE TO CALL AND HARASS ME! Please let me know what else I can do to get him to stop!
Comments
In the mean time, the Chinese make stuff, and buy up access to the world's oil.
If you ask for information, you have to identify yourself as a debt collector since you have to disclose the information may be used to collect a debt.
No one said the laws make your life easy, but you still have to follow them.
No law says you have to use the telephone at all. You choose to do so, you have to comply with a bunch of laws. They don't even have to make sense, you still have to comply. Tough luck.
The phone numbers you have are actually MORE likely to change hands than average, if they are debtors.
You still have to notify the called party that information you are requesting may be used to collect a debt.
(3) At the consumer's place of employment if the debt collector knows or has reason to know that the consumer's employer prohibits the consumer from receiving such communication.
SO, IF NOT STATED NO CALLING IS ALLOWED , CALLS MAY CONTINUE
(c) CEASING COMMUNICATION. If a consumer notifies a debt collector in writing that the consumer refuses to pay a debt or that the consumer wishes the debt collector to cease further communication with the consumer, the debt collector shall not communicate further with the consumer with respect to such debt, except-
(1) To advise the consumer that the debt collector's further efforts are being terminated;
(2) To notify the consumer that the debt collector or creditor may invoke specified remedies which are ordinarily invoked by such debt collector or creditor; or 805 15 USC 1692c
(3) Where applicable, to notify the consumer that the debt collector or creditor intends to invoke a specified remedy. If such notice from the consumer is made by mail, notification shall be complete upon receipt.
(d) For the purpose of this section, the term "consumer" includes the consumer's spouse, parent (if the consumer is a minor), guardian, executor, or administrator.
Complaint was reporting repeated harassing and abusive calls. FDCPA does not require any "cease communications" notice to make those illegal.
You were engaging in debt collection, using the implied threat that you would sue if you were not immediately paid.
That threat may or may not actually reflect any direction from your client, and may or may not be true. The amount may or may not be legally owed, for example, if the lender had not followed state law in promptly notifying the debtor of the amount due after repo and sale at auction, or other state notifications that apply to car repos had not been made. If not, then you were using deception to collect a debt.
Don't be surprised if the people you call "by mistake" aren't impressed with your rudeness. Don't be surprised if they want payback.
You may not know which ones you called in error, but you have to assume that the next one you call might be one of them.
Given that, you should treat each person you call with respect, and consider the possibility that the reason they are agnry at you is because of your own mistake, that you may have been repeatedly harassing them about some "debt" they do not owe.
In these cases, you cannot assume that they got some letter, as when you screw up, you may screw up big. The same factors that lead you to call the wrong person will make it likely that your letter will have gone somewhere else.
This has always been part of debt collection, as "unpaid debts" may be owed by people who have moved, changed phone numbers, or even be due to billing errors.
It is as much your direct responsibility to notify people you call how to dispute debts, as it is your responsibility to see that they get notice of the same by mail. Yet the debt collection industry maintains the fiction that they need only do the minimum that their reading of the law requires, and that once they have gone through those motions, whatever mistakes slip through are somehow not their fault. In fact, you like to blame all those people complaining about you.
What gets you in trouble, repeatedly, is believing your own fictions. No one else believes it is tolerable to be called repeatedly, ignoring their requests to cease. No one else believes that diverting consumers from disputing debts, by the fiction that you don't have to notify them of their right to dispute until they dislose their identity information, and until then, you get to call them repeatedly until they do. No one else believes that when a consumer calls wondering about some account they don't recognize, they somehow are not disputing, so unless they figure out what their legal rights are, you get to belittle and threaten them, even though you haven't a clue whether they were even the person who actually owed this debt since you never checked with the original creditor.
The debt collection industry thinks this is all a normal business practice, but no business that had to get its customers to voluntarily buy its products could survive this type of "customer service".
It is your job to ensure that you to not harass people. It is your job to ensure that your employees are not abusive on the phone. It is your job to ensure that you do not get money from people who do not owe you. It's the law.
Autodialer blocking has been available as a module for landlines for over a decade.
If enough people get fed up with autodialer harassment, and Verizon and ATT added autodialer blocking to their landline and cell phone privacy services, your autodialers would become junk, and you would be out of a job.
You might start studying for a new career now.
And no, verifying just the last 4 digits of your SSN does not block someone from getting the rest. Anyone getting Accurint's least secure tracing service can get the first 5 digits for any name and address, and if you give them the last 4, they can verify through Accurint that the 4 you gave them completes the 5 they have and matches your name, giving them the whole 9, even though they couldn't get that whole 9 directly from Accurint.
The whole skip-trace and credit reporting system has so many holes you cannot trust anyone on the phone. Its security is compromised beyond repair.
Mergers and changes of ownership affect record integrity. It makes sense to check the records back to the original creditor, to make sure you are not being mixed up with someone else, and that the alleged account balance is correct.
"By NOT verifying, you give the co. the right to contact you again and again." Yeah, because we don't give out identity information, we are now making you harass us.
Are you people idiots?
How can you be reached?
LETS END THIS STUPIDITY HERE. NO ONE IS TRYING TO COLLECT A DEBT FROM A PARTY ITS NOT ATTACHED TO. THATS WHY WE HAVE TO CONFIRM WHO WE ARE SPEAKING TO. WRONG NUMBERS ARE JUST THAT. WRONG, PEOPLE CHANGE THEIR NUMBERS OFTEN, AND THEY ARE RECYCLED. LOOK AT THIS THREAD AND REALIZE THE MAJORITY OF COMPLAINTS ARE WRONG #S, AND THEY SAY THAT THEY JUST HANG UP.
YOUR TRYING TO STIR UP AND ISSUE THATS NOT CORRECT.
WE CANNOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE GIVE A DEBTORS INFORMATION TO ANYONE BUT A VERIFIED SPOUSE. PERIOD.