How do I get debt collectors to stop calling?

XxFuRy2Xx

XxFuRy2Xx

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Let me start this off by saying that it isn't me who owes the money. They keep trying to call some person whose name is "Judith." I'm not Judith, and I've told them multiple times that the number they keep contacting is a cell phone number, which now belongs to me.

The last few times I've tried to get them to pass me over to their supervisor, but they usually hang up on me or cop an attitude.

The number keeps coming up as unavailable, so I can't try using google to find out what company it is that keeps calling.

Is there anything I can do to get these douchebags to stop calling me?
 
Threaten to sue them for harassment (probably won't get you anywhere), change your number like Judith did, or just quit answering the phone when it says unavailable...
 
Ask for the company they work for, then contact that company. Or, try to act like you will pay to get information about them, THEN once you get somewhere/get information ask for a supervisor/explain you aren't the person, and that you have the information you will file a harassment suit if they don't cease and desist the calling.
 
My girlfriend had that issue when she first got her cell phone. She quit answering it after explaining she is the person they where looking for so many times. After 6 months or so they quit calling.

Right now at my apartment we had a couple move out and now we are getting automated debt collection messages on our answering machine all the time for both of them.

sooner or later they will get a clue, Otherwise legal action is probably the only way. Just hope that company doesn't just sell the information to another one and it all starts over again.
Good luck
 
just be sarcastic and tell them you will pay them off. then when they act serious and try to get your info, SHOUT EXCEPT I"M NOT fuckING JUDITH... and slam the phone
 
Tell them Judith isn't available, but if they give you the comapny contact info you'll have her call back.

Then call the number and tell them this isn't Judith's number anymore and if they call you again you'll file a police report for harassment. If you end up calling back the same person, say you need to speak to a supervisor and tell them. Expect this to take several attempts or an actual police report to work.

Aside from that- standard telemarketer tomfoolery sounds like fair game. My fiance stopped a particularly annoying telemarketer from calling my mom with bad foreign accents: "Hola! Jane? No, Jose- como esta? (*at this point the telemarketer responds in Spanish*) Oh, uno momento.... Guten tag! Jane? No, Tobias! Ja, Tobias!" Then he hung up.

You might try selling them something- "No, you've got a wrong number, but boy do I have a deal for you!" :lol:
 
I had the same problem when I got my phone, and it took about 3 years before they stopped calling. They did not call often, so it was not too annoying. After a while I would just plug the numbers that were calling e into my contacts and use a silent ring tone so I would not hear them any more.

When I got my daughter a phone she also had the same problem. When they called one day I took the phone call and asked them why they kept calling and harassing a minor, and told them that is they called the number again that I would report them to the authorities for the harassment of a minor. All of this was true. I do not know if I was just lucky, but they never called her phone again.
 
[quote name='XxFuRy2Xx']Let me start this off by saying that it isn't me who owes the money. They keep trying to call some person whose name is "Judith." I'm not Judith, and I've told them multiple times that the number they keep contacting is a cell phone number, which now belongs to me.

The last few times I've tried to get them to pass me over to their supervisor, but they usually hang up on me or cop an attitude.

The number keeps coming up as unavailable, so I can't try using google to find out what company it is that keeps calling.

Is there anything I can do to get these douchebags to stop calling me?[/QUOTE]

First thing is note the date and time of the next phone call. Then request all communication to continue by mail, a copy of the transcript for the phone conversation, and the company's name and who the debt originated with (regardless of it being Judith's). Hopefully, you'll get all four of the above, if not anything you can get from them is good (you might even get lucky and the mere request for transcript will chase them off). Now, contact your state attorney's office, explain the situation, and if asked provide as much information as you can. Most states - at least, that I'm aware of - will supply you with a package in the mail to be completed and returned. It'll take a few weeks to a month or so, but it'll get cleared up. It also works well with zombie debt.
 
Blast RickRoll in the backround when they call. Eventually they'll stop..... hey it worked for me when this damn "non-profit organization" continued to call me asking for donations when I told them no.
 
Thanks for the info guys. I think I'll try and get info out of them by telling them that "Judith" isn't available and that she'll call them back. Hopefully they'll give me the damn info, because whenever I even try and get anything out of them they immediately hang up on me.

It's really annoying because they call every single day multiple times a day. It sucks because sometimes I forget to silence my phone when I go to work, and it ends up ringing and embarrassing me.
 
as a former debt collector, if you act like you know Judith they'll note that its a valid number for her and keep calling, probably even more. They can call as many times as they want a day if they believe it to be a valid number for her until they actually talk to her. Just keep telling them you don't know her, never heard of her, it's your cell phone they are calling and to immediately stop calling. It does not matter who they are, so don't ask. They can't tell you about her debt anyway unless you are married to Judith.
 
[quote name='keithp']Try this!

[youtube]1waHJhb2wxo[/youtube][/QUOTE]

This was the first vid I thought of when I read the OP.
 
I had the same problem when I got my new number. They kept asking for some guy named Jorge. They were calling nonstop. After a while I started answering it whenever I could and told them this was a new number and I do not know any Jorge. It did get them to go away...eventually.
 
I have the same problems, and it never stops. Someone is always calling our phones to collect on someone else's debt, or, I suspect to get us to participate in a scam paying someone else's debt.

I just don't answer my phone anymore if I don't recognize the caller ID. I just let it go to my answering service if it shows as "unknown".

Yeah, I suppose I could talk to a supervisor, mail the callers police reports, etc...but you know what? That takes up too much time, just to be repeated over and over again.
 
I had a similar problem, only much creepier. Multiple creditors would call for the same person and we would also get mail for her. Even worse, the person is listed in the phone book under our name and address. We called the phone company to get them to change the listing but they said they couldn't until the phone book was printed again. No matter what we did the calls would not stop. We eventually had to change our number, I think the mail also stopped once we did that, don't know if it was a coincidence or not. It's only been a few months though since we changed our number.

We live in a new construction home, so the person could not have ever had our address, and of course they could never have had our phone number and address. Somehow someone used our info- I don't know how they got it because we started getting mail for her as soon as we moved in so the information could not have been available to steal very easily. It's kind of creeping me out thinking about it now, I'm still not sure what happened. I feel like it must have been someone with access to the info like the phone company or home builder.
 
1) Stop answering the phone. Eventually they'll give up. I never answer unknown calls.

2) Change your phone number.

Those are the best two ways from my experience.
 
Get one of those annoying ass ringtones that plays for the caller while waiting for you to answer, and make sure you get yours as Never Gonna Give You Up. Let it ring everytime they call, and laugh everytime you see it ringing.
 
Not a bad idea Cracka, sorta beats my "pay your bills" idea.
smile
 
[quote name='scsg75']athey can call as many times as they want a day if they believe it to be a valid number for her until they actually talk to her.[/quote]bull shit
 
I have a proven method. Be polite. It usually takes a month or so, but it always works. To read why I know this works, see the spoiler tags below. Otherwise, just go to my list.

I got a new number about seven years ago. I was bombarded with collections calls for this guy and his mother. I said "they aren't at this number anymore" at first, but it wasn't working. So after the third time calling back, I started becoming increasingly indignant with them. This went on for the better part of a year. Then someone suggested to me "Why not try being polite?". "I WAS polite!" I said. Yeah, sure, but only for the first few calls. You need to be a broken record of politeness (I'll reveal why later). I tried it, the calls stopped dead within a month. Now, seven years later, I still get a call maybe once a year for John or Mary Mena, but not nearly as many as the mis-dials that call me.

So why did the politeness work? Well, about three years ago, I started working at a telesurvey center. In my short time there, I learned two things: 1) people are rude, nasty, self-righteous pricks about unsolicited phone calls, and 2) you can only work that shitty a job for so long before abusing your power to spite people. What power? The Power of the Scheduled Call Back. Justifiable when people are really rude, in my opinion, but eventually it starts being used for the tiniest perceived slight. "Oh no motherfucker, no one just picks up and hangs up on ME" or "That guy sounded so irritatingly passive aggressive. fuck HIM!" or "Sorry fucko, we don't have a "List" for me to take you off of! Guess you get a call back!".

So please, in trying to rid yourself of these people, keep the following in mind:

1) Take a cue from Dalton: "If somebody gets in your face and calls you a c#$%sucker, I want you to be nice. Ask him to walk. Be nice. If he won't walk, walk him. But be nice."

2) Don't ask for a supervisor. You're just wasting time. Even if they choose to put a supervisor on, it'll just be the guy sitting next to them pretending to be a supe.

3) Don't stop answering your phone. Yes, if you stop answering your phone it may stop after 6 months to a year, but that's a long time to not be picking up. Especially if you have friends or family who could be in some sort of emergency, and not be calling from a familiar number. Bottom line: If you don't answer, they'll just call back.

4) Don't threaten them. Call center/collections employees spend half their lives being threatened with hazy legal action, so it won't have any sort of immediate effect. Also, as a collections agency, they're usually entitled to use whatever contact information they were given by the debtor as many times as they like. State laws vary on this, but you have no guarantee they're even in your state, and the legalities are so convoluted that you'll waste more time suing and spending money than being polite.

5) Don't be cute. Picking up and pretending to be Special Ed might seem funny, but all it's doing is causing you to be called back by the vindictive human being on the other end of the line. Funny at the time, but when it results in getting called back four or five more times just to piss you off, you'll regret it.

6) Keep in mind that if you change your number, you're just as likely to get that person's debt collectors calling as well. New number, same problems.

Good Luck!
 
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[quote name='Gentlegamer']bull shit[/QUOTE]

all I know is when I worked for Discover Card, as I was trained, if we talked to a third party or if we had a no answer or an answering machine, we would set it to call back in 1 hour. Every hour until we made contact. If we made contact with the debt holder, we couldn't contact them again about the debt until 7 days, or 1 day after their payment arrangements to avoid harassment.

A collector can call every 5 minutes if they really wanted to if no one answers the phone or if they get an answering machine or a 3rd party until they talk to the actual person who holds the debt if they believe it to be a valid number, as long as it's during reasonable hours and not a holiday. It's harassment if they continuously call and make contact with the debt holder multiple times a day about the debt

If someone told us it was a wrong number we were supposed to set it to call back in one hour to verify that it's not a valid number. After the call back, if it's verified a second time to be a wrong number, we took the number out and it went to skip tracing to find a valid number.
 
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I'm getting calls from one of those damn telemarketing companies, they call me from different numbers so what I started doing was forwarding all my calls to one of their numbers.

I guess that won't work for everyone, but maybe some of you have phones that can forward only certain calls.
 
[quote name='caltab']I had a similar problem, only much creepier. Multiple creditors would call for the same person and we would also get mail for her. Even worse, the person is listed in the phone book under our name and address. We called the phone company to get them to change the listing but they said they couldn't until the phone book was printed again. No matter what we did the calls would not stop. We eventually had to change our number, I think the mail also stopped once we did that, don't know if it was a coincidence or not. It's only been a few months though since we changed our number.

We live in a new construction home, so the person could not have ever had our address, and of course they could never have had our phone number and address. Somehow someone used our info- I don't know how they got it because we started getting mail for her as soon as we moved in so the information could not have been available to steal very easily. It's kind of creeping me out thinking about it now, I'm still not sure what happened. I feel like it must have been someone with access to the info like the phone company or home builder.[/QUOTE]

You check your credit report recently, after you bought the house? Those bank records go through a lot of hands...
 
[quote name='Snake2715']You check your credit report recently, after you bought the house? Those bank records go through a lot of hands...[/QUOTE]

We actually don't have a mortgage because we pulled out of the stock market before it tanked and bought our house with cash, so no paper trail from that. But ya, we checked our credit reports and they were clean.

The main point to OP though is these creditors are nearly impossible to stop, we put up with it for a year and a half before giving up and changing our number. When they would call I'd tell them I was looking for the lady as well and to give me any info they had on her-they seemed to believe me when I'd tell them someone was using our info fraudulently and would apologize and promise not to bother us again, but it never stopped.
 
Well, it looks like they didn't call from an unavailable number this time. The phone number is 866-256-9096. They called twice today while I was at work, but I had it on vibrate so it wasn't really a problem. Any chance of finding out who it is with the phone number alone?
 
[quote name='XxFuRy2Xx']Well, it looks like they didn't call from an unavailable number this time. The phone number is 866-256-9096. They called twice today while I was at work, but I had it on vibrate so it wasn't really a problem. Any chance of finding out who it is with the phone number alone?[/QUOTE]
Punch the number in to Google and look at the first result. It's not pretty.
 
I had something like this before too on a new home phone number. Albeit my wife gets free legal services through her work for all kinds of issues, so I called the law office after this place wouldn't stop calling looking for some guy who owed them money for something. They sent me a form which is basically a stop calling me form but its called a cease and descist letter or something. After I finally got the callers to give me an address (the lawyers told me that they have to give this to you if you ask but it took a few times before they gave it too me) I sent in the form with my number which demanded them not to call me for someone else's debt or I'd take legal action. They must have received the form because roughly a few weeks later I never got another call again.
 
I had a collection agency calling me. To get them to stop I sent a letter politely asking them to.
Granted, this was actually something under my wife's name but it was some unjustified dentist/insurance BS. They did stop, but 3 years later we had to pay it anyway when we bought a house to get approved for mortgage. Blah.
 
I haven't had a problem with debt collectors, but for several years I had a cell number one digit different from a local medical supply company. I would get all kinds of weird calls and messages about peoples wheelchairs and oxygen tanks (for example). I would actually answer some times and try to tell them the correct number; I felt bad if they were missing a vital piece of medical equipment. I finally broke down when the volume of calls went up and changed my number.
 
I had the exact opposite problem. A collector from Sprint called because I ran up a $700 cell phone bill in St. Louis while delivering pizza in Bowling Green. I pointed out that obvious problem and they never called back.

Fast forward to applying for a mortgage. The debt had been resold three times. I contacted the debt company, but they were too busy to discuss the problem. I gave up calling them and there is nothing on my credit reports now.

EDIT: Have you tried these three questions?

1. Do I know you?
2. Do I owe you money?
3. Why are you calling me?
 
I had same problem as OP. Usually I would get calls from a machine with a call back number. I kept calling back and explaining I don't know the person they were seeking and that I just recently was given the phone number and eventually they stopped calling. I am actually surprised that most of the debt collectors seemed to believe me and were cool with it. It seemed to help when I was polite too.
 
Ugh. I've been receiving phone calls from a Debt Collection agency for YEARS now. New home, and I don't know the person. I've been polite, I repeatedly tell them that Debra doesn't live here and could never have lived here, etc. They still call back.

At this point I just let them call. The phone ringing doesn't bother me that much, and I figure that if they keep calling the wrong number (mine) they will NEVER collect from Debra. At this point I'm actually on Debra's side. There's a limited amount of time to collect on a debt in Texas.
 
They eventually stop if you keep telling 'em you have no idea who the person is. Takes a few months, but they'll stop eventually.[quote name='benjamouth']I'm getting calls from one of those damn telemarketing companies, they call me from different numbers so what I started doing was forwarding all my calls to one of their numbers.

I guess that won't work for everyone, but maybe some of you have phones that can forward only certain calls.[/QUOTE]
:lol:
 
[quote name='WhipSmartBanky']Punch the number in to Google and look at the first result. It's not pretty.[/QUOTE]Apparently it's some company called NCO Financial Systems, and it seems like they're a bunch of scumbags. Wonderful.
 
NCO, apparently, is who is calling me as well. As I said, I have repeatedly told them that the woman couldn't possibly have /ever/ lived here, and they still call.

They leave an amusing message on my answering machine during the day when we're not home. Something to the effect of: "If you are not the person this call is addressed to, please hang up now. (3 second pause) If you continue to listen to this message, you acknowledge that you ARE Debra blah blah blah."
 
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