Prior owner of my new phone number appears to be a deadbeat

[davew128]

My personal favorite was to put the phone on speaker, an adult movie on the tv, and the volume up. It was...interesting to listen to the reaction on the other end of the phone.

 

[TigerD]

The irony is that people think those phone games mean something to the collector. It happens at least once or twice a week. But what you don't realize is that gets you marked as a positive contact for the debtor and more calls.

Look the collector at most larger agencies is a phone monkey. When I worked the phones, you had 60 seconds to be reading me check numbers or I marked the account refused to pay and took the next call. The collector doesn't care why the debt wasn't paid. The collector doesn't care what your complaint is. All that matters is moving the call closer to entering payment.

DC

 

[TinkerBelleLuvr]

From what I can tell, I have 3 different deadbeats I'm dealing with. In today's call, I had only a name of the person calling. I reversed from caller ID and explained the situation. Nope - have no idea who this person is ... I received this number a month ago. They'll remove this number from their database as a contact number but give it 24 hours to cycle. Basically, when it sells to the number collector, they'll be calling again. At least this lady was nice about it.

 

[FlyingRon]

I'll go back and tell you what I have learned the hard way from my own experience (as confirmed by DebtCollector above).
There is NOTHING you're going to do to stop these calls. Even when I managed to get through to the president of National Recovery and got my number blocked from the one place they were getting it, it didn't last.

Here is the solution:

Call your phone company. Explain the situation and ask for a new number. If they want to charge, pester them for a supervisor and see if you get someone who can waive the fee. If not pay it (for now).

If you have to pay the fee, go to www.fcc.gov and over on the side is a link that says "FILE A COMPLAINT." Go ahead and fill that out with all the information on your carrier, phone number, etc... it asks for explaining why you should not be liable for the fee to get off a deadbeat number that THIS PHONE COMPANY issued you. It will take about two months, but I've had issues like this with BellAtlantic (now Verizon), ATT, and Sprint and eventually you will get a call, usually from the president's office or corporate counsel asking how to revise it. Rebating your $35 or whatever is in their authority and they'll be glad to do it usually to dismiss the complaint.

 

[justalayman]

debtcollector`;3128170]The irony is that people think those phone games mean something to the collector. It happens at least once or twice a week. But what you don't realize is that gets you marked as a positive contact for the debtor and more calls.

that's ok. I can play those games forever. I enjoy wasting their time. If I have nothing to do, we can talk into the wee hours of the morning. I enjoy finding out about their local area, the weather, where they went to school, if they are married, have children, anything I can think of. The psychological game on my side is people love to talk about themselves so a lot of them will simply not disconnect.

Look the collector at most larger agencies is a phone monkey. When I worked the phones, you had 60 seconds to be reading me check numbers or I marked the account refused to pay and took the next call.

I take that as challenge. How long can I keep the phone monkey on the line. I can be pretty creative at times. Hell, I can take more than 60 seconds to find my checkbook, that I'm really not looking for. Then asking them to explain what numbers they want and dang are those numbers funny, I can hardly read them. Trust me DC, there are a lot of collectors that are really gullible, or stupid.

The collector doesn't care why the debt wasn't paid.

neither do I because it isn't mine. The longer he or she stays on the line with me, the less he earns because he will never collect the money from me.

The collector doesn't care what your complaint is. All that matters is moving the call closer to entering payment.

but since it isn't my debt, that isn't ever happening. The real debtor might not like me though because when I feel like it, I challenge the creditor to sue me. Tell them they don't have the balls to sue me.


of course if the wife answers the phone, I hope they have earplugs. She really doesn't like those calls and boy does she let them know. For some reason, even those people won't hang up. That's ok though. Rather the wife takes her frustration out on them than me.


If I can't get the calls to stop, at least I have a great time screwing with them.

 

[Bosco]

I'll go back and tell you what I have learned the hard way from my own experience (as confirmed by DebtCollector above).
There is NOTHING you're going to do to stop these calls. Even when I managed to get through to the president of National Recovery and got my number blocked from the one place they were getting it, it didn't last.

That's because you didn't do it right. Sometimes you have to take a little crow hop and blast them in the temple with a nice right hook before they get the message.

And for the record, Layman had a solid point. It can be a pain in the ass to go through the process, and it is not for everyone. I, however, enjoy the fight. That's just me though.

And Layman, those are some good stories there. It's a shame I don't get calls from debt collectors, because I'd have to try some of that.