Phones and Collectors - Tips

[JoeBlow]

First of all everyone should know that collection agencies can get a printout of everyone you call or who calls you on your landline phone. In other words you are paying for phone service that is being used to spy on you. So if your relatives start getting calls from collectors it is because you have called them before on your landline. You should cancel your landline service before you run into trouble and get a prepaid cell phone. They can't track these phone calls and you can register under a phony name anyway. I don't think they can skip trace regular cell phones either.

If you want to drive the collector crazy, make a bunch of wrong number calls on your landline phone. Call them at least twice - "opps, sorry wrong number". That way they will have to sort through possibly hundreds of calls to try to find someone who knows you.

The way collection agencies find out where you work is when you call your work from your landline phone or if you are stupid enough to tell them (just tell them your work number is the same as you home number).

A good way to manage the harrassment of phone calls is to cancel your landline and get a prepaid phone (trackphone, Virgin etc) . Give that number to your creditor. Then, turn the ringer to silent and leave it in your dresser drawer. Leave it on and charge it every now and then. For your regular phone, get another prepaid phone.

If the creditors already are calling your relatives, tell them to give the collector the number of the phone you have in your dresser drawer. They will stop calling your relatives if they have a number to contact you at. You might talk to them once on the decoy phone just to let them know its active. Ask them to send you a statement and then hang up.

[HHM]

Instead of just stating your claims, how about providing proof.

[One Half Full]

I havent had a real telephone for about 5 years. I have a pre-paid and a
viop phone. I use my pre-paid number to give to businesses as "my phone number." So far, I have not gotten a single call from a bill collector.

[JoeBlow]

Tracing landline calls might have been included in the new bankruptcy code. I'm not sure, but I am convinced from circumstantial evidence that this is how they do it. I remember getting two calls from someone in Spanish at a phone number that i had for 3 years, then a month later I started getting calls from collection agencies that insisted that I knew Juan Gonzolas or something. I asked one why and she said because he had called me before.

I knew a couple of people who were collectors who said "get a cell phone" and no one can find you.

Some credit companies also insist that you maintain a "land line phone" in order to make a payment plan settlement.

Finally, how else would they get the phone numbers of relatives who have married names and live in other states? And why do they only call people who you have called on your landline?

IMHO the landline phone is your enemy.

Instead of just stating your claims, how about providing proof.

[HHM]

So, in other words, you are full of crap

Sorry to have to call you out, but that claim that collectors can access your land line phone records is other garbage.

[JoeBlow]

You are pretty hostile for the moderator of a bankruptcy forum. You remind me of a collector.

Check out this link. I guess attorneys and collectors have been buying phone records for some time.

http://www.privacytoday.com/HC020106.htm

http://guides.bizjournalsdirectory.com/Judgment_Recovery_Services-a854759.html

So, in other words, you are full of crap

Sorry to have to call you out, but that claim that collectors can access your land line phone records is other garbage.

[HHM]

You are pretty hostile for the moderator of a bankruptcy forum. You remind me of a collector.

Check out this link. I guess attorneys and collectors have been buying phone records for some time.

http://www.privacytoday.com/HC020106.htm

http://guides.bizjournalsdirectory.c...s-a854759.html

Claiming something is "possible" and claiming that it actually happens on a wide spread basis are different things.

You made a VERY SPECIFIC claim that Collection Agencies actually track down relatives by tracing the debtor's outbound calls. That claim is largely false. First, you have no direct evidence that this happens. Second, most (not all, but most) debt collectors only call third parties in order to locate the debtor (i.e. skip tracing). So in essence, you are claiming the CA's put the chicken before the egg.

Yes, I do get hostile when someone asserts speculation as fact and provides mis-information to the members of this board.

The fact is, CA's are cost adverse and lazy. The CA business model is based on the law of averages. 90% of the time, all the info they need is publicly available in one form or the other (credit reports, public information, and the information provided by the original creditor), they are not going to spend money to buy info of dubious legal status in order to collect 10% of their debt portfolio. More over, contacting 3rd parties is a low yield collection method, the collector wants to to talk to the DEBTOR, because the debtor is the one that will ultimately cut the check. A good collection agency is not going to waste time contacting 3rd parties...the good CA's really only do so as a means of skip tracing, and they don't get the 3rd party info from the debtor's outbound calls (after all, if they had the debtor's outbound calls, they would know how to contact the debtor).

So, getting outbound calls may be possible (albeit legally dubious), it is not a tactic that is widely employed in the average consumer collection arena.

[imbroke2]

Getting rid of a landline is all fine, except for those of us who live in the boonies no where near a cell tower. Actually, just our house is bad for cells. We have to go into the dining room to talk on our cells. I have a cell but choose to keep my landline especially in the event my cell battery dies and I need to call 911 or something. I also have 3 kids and feel better if I have a reliable phone. Sure cells are reliable, but to me a landline is much more reliable in an emergency. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but that's the way I like it.

[HRx]

Getting rid of a landline is all fine, except for those of us who live in the boonies no where near a cell tower. Actually, just our house is bad for cells. We have to go into the dining room to talk on our cells. I have a cell but choose to keep my landline especially in the event my cell battery dies and I need to call 911 or something. I also have 3 kids and feel better if I have a reliable phone. Sure cells are reliable, but to me a landline is much more reliable in an emergency. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but that's the way I like it.

Nothing wrong with that...look at what happened to cell lines on Sept 11, 2001.

[JoeBlow]

All right then, the original creditor (the credit card company etc.) gets your landline phone record and then passes that information on to the collection agencies.

Claiming something is "possible" and claiming that it actually happens on a wide spread basis are different things.

You made a VERY SPECIFIC claim that Collection Agencies actually track down relatives by tracing the debtor's outbound calls. That claim is largely false. First, you have no direct evidence that this happens. Second, most (not all, but most) debt collectors only call third parties in order to locate the debtor (i.e. skip tracing). So in essence, you are claiming the CA's put the chicken before the egg.

Yes, I do get hostile when someone asserts speculation as fact and provides mis-information to the members of this board.

The fact is, CA's are cost adverse and lazy. The CA business model is based on the law of averages. 90% of the time, all the info they need is publicly available in one form or the other (credit reports, public information, and the information provided by the original creditor), they are not going to spend money to buy info of dubious legal status in order to collect 10% of their debt portfolio. More over, contacting 3rd parties is a low yield collection method, the collector wants to to talk to the DEBTOR, because the debtor is the one that will ultimately cut the check. A good collection agency is not going to waste time contacting 3rd parties...the good CA's really only do so as a means of skip tracing, and they don't get the 3rd party info from the debtor's outbound calls (after all, if they had the debtor's outbound calls, they would know how to contact the debtor).

So, getting outbound calls may be possible (albeit legally dubious), it is not a tactic that is widely employed in the average consumer collection arena.

[epiphany]

All right then, the original creditor (the credit card company etc.) gets your landline phone record and then passes that information on to the collection agencies.

Nah, I don't think so. AT & T won't even give me a record of my own local calls without a court order. (I tried a few weeks ago due to a billing error) Seriously.

ep

[JoeBlow]

Use your head, this is how they get the information and they don't want the public to know this. If you skip town, they only call the people you have called in your land line phone record or if its already listed on your credit report for some reason. If someone is going to move out of town, that person will call the friend or relative who they are going to go live with several times. This is how they find you.

Nah, I don't think so. AT & T won't even give me a record of my own local calls without a court order. (I tried a few weeks ago due to a billing error) Seriously.

ep

[epiphany]

Use your head,

Damn.

Must Remember:

Use Head

Use Head

Use Head

Thanks for the reminder.

ep

[HHM]

All right then, the original creditor (the credit card company etc.) gets your landline phone record and then passes that information on to the collection agencies.

Stupid is as stupid does, I suppose.

[woeisme]

I have a cell but choose to keep my landline especially in the event my cell battery dies and I need to call 911 or something. I also have 3 kids and feel better if I have a reliable phone. Sure cells are reliable, but to me a landline is much more reliable in an emergency.

Even if you cancel service to your landline, you can still use it in an emergency to call 911. About a year ago on the local news they had a story about how a house burnt down after the owners called 911 about the fire on their cell phone, and the call got bounced to a different county so it took over an hour for help to arrive. They said that you can still call 911 from a house without service, you just have to have a phone plugged into the jack, and that if you called 911 that way they'd have the address automatically in the 911 system, so was a much better way to call for help. Just a thought for those of you thinking about cancelling a landline (we did for financial reasons, not for fear of creditors). You can have you cell phone and get 911 on the landline without an actual landline contract too!