UGH!! Now getting yelled at by creditors who aren't even mine!! :(

[tobee43]

I have never answered a call on my cell phone unless I know who it is. I just am not willing to spend my cell minutes dealing with collections. Anyway, there's been this "unavailable" number calling my cell phone for weeks now. I've always ignored it until today. Feeling cocky since I now had my bankruptcy file number I answered the call. This guy asked for me and then proceeded to tell me he was calling from Household Finance. Well, problem is, I don't have a loan from Household Finance, never have. He says, "Well, does your social security number end in 1973?" NOPE - sure doesn't. Then he got really ugly. Said he had talked to me in July at this number (WRONG! I don't answer this number unless it's a friend or family member calling). Started yelling at me and saying I was lying. Told him "I'm telling you that you have the wrong person. You can't even tell me my correct social security number. I absolutely do not have a loan through Household Finance, and if you continue to call me, I will be sure to let my attorney know." OOOOO, he didn't like that and literally starts screaming at me, so I just hung up. Now, in all honesty, since it's coming from an unavailable number, I have no idea what my attorney could do about it anyway. Just think it's insane that all my creditors that I actually have filed bankruptcy with have all been pretty polite and decent. This jerk -- don't even know where he's from -- and he's obviously not looking for me -- wants to yell at me. What a loon!

we had the same thing happen...i do not know who your carrier is but with verizon you can block up to 6 calls i think it is...but you have update it every 90 days....

well the kicker for us...we left our state...(after 33 years) changed numbers...unlisted so....what do you think...they gave us someone's number who owned everyone and their mothers...and when i told them we were NOT those people...they didn't believe us...finally i took their numbers via call id and reported them online to the FTC and it finally stopped...

now i don't mind calls...or i do if they are mine...but someone elses...NOT!!!!!

[AngelinaCat]

This is not a game...

Whatever you do, please DO NOT make a 'game' out of this and 'play' with the person on the phone from the CA. Those calls are recorded. Any affirmative statement you make, or a 'yes' answer, may make you the owner of that debt--even if it is not yours. This is how Zombie Debt works. The CA's don't care about you or if you truly own the debt; they are there to get dollars or pennies for their clients, the original creditor, or if sold over and over, their bosses. They don't care who pays it.

[ssmdem]

Whatever you do, please DO NOT make a 'game' out of this and 'play' with the person on the phone from the CA. Those calls are recorded. Any affirmative statement you make, or a 'yes' answer, may make you the owner of that debt--even if it is not yours. This is how Zombie Debt works. The CA's don't care about you or if you truly own the debt; they are there to get dollars or pennies for their clients, the original creditor, or if sold over and over, their bosses. They don't care who pays it.

I'm definitely not agreeing I own this debt -- cause I know for a fact that I don't. No phone calls today, so maybe yesterday was the last I've heard from them. They've called everyday 3-5 times a day for the last couple of weeks, so not to have any call from them today has been odd. Hoping they're gone since he couldn't get me to agree that I was the person he was looking for. The only thing I affirmed was that I had been the owner of this number for the past 5 years. He said he had talked to me in July and I had said that I couldn't pay right then because I had lost my job. I've never talked to anyone from my cell phone regarding a debt until yesterday. The only thing that almost got me was the fact that we DID talk to creditors during that time frame and I did say I had lost my job -- but the only ones we ever talked to were Citibank, Chase, Chase Mortgage, and Bank of America. That's all we owe money too. Oh, and Lowe's -- but no one has ever even called from Lowe's.

[ssmdem]

we had the same thing happen...i do not know who your carrier is but with verizon you can block up to 6 calls i think it is...but you have update it every 90 days....

well the kicker for us...we left our state...(after 33 years) changed numbers...unlisted so....what do you think...they gave us someone's number who owned everyone and their mothers...and when i told them we were NOT those people...they didn't believe us...finally i took their numbers via call id and reported them online to the FTC and it finally stopped...

now i don't mind calls...or i do if they are mine...but someone elses...NOT!!!!!

We have Verizon, and I typically do block calls that I know are from creditors, but this number is showing as unavailable - so don't have a way of figuring out where it is coming from.

[BrokeinMD]

One of my creditors got crafty and called my cellphone from a local number. It caught me off guard, and I answered it, thinking it was my other half, who's notorious for borrowing other people's phones to call me. When they asked for me, I said, "She's not available, can I take a message?" They asked, "When will she be available?" I said, "Not quite sure." They said they would call back. They did, numerous times, but I flagged the number. They can't prove it was you answering your phone, even your cellphone.

The one time I called a creditor when I was late to make a payment, they wouldn't take my payment over the phone, and were trying to draw my work number out of me, but wouldn't take my payment. I told them if they didn't take my payment, then I had no interest in talking to them. That never made sense to me, but I had sense enough not to give them a number to harass me if I had a future problem. Now they talk to my lawyer. :P

[frogger]

Any creditor that starts yelling should immediately get the sound of click, followed by silence.

[2011]

Whatever you do, please DO NOT make a 'game' out of this and 'play' with the person on the phone from the CA. Those calls are recorded. Any affirmative statement you make, or a 'yes' answer, may make you the owner of that debt--even if it is not yours. This is how Zombie Debt works. The CA's don't care about you or if you truly own the debt; they are there to get dollars or pennies for their clients, the original creditor, or if sold over and over, their bosses. They don't care who pays it.

its most certainly not a game, but you also have to beat the bottom feeders at their OWN game..and that means catching them in FDCPA violations... they will NOT give you any info ( address, etc and often not even their real business name) but they will harass you for your bank account info.... the only way, in most instances, is to tell a white lie to get them to give you a mailing address.... I have NEVER seen a debt becomes someone's simply by saying "yes" to a phone call....
any creditor or alleged creditor is bound to PROVE the debt is yours... I do not know a lot about BK, but I know the collection laws ;)

[Charlie777]

It may cost a monthly fee, but you can do "Anonymous Call Block" - if a caller blocks their caller ID they hear a message saying "the person you called doesn't accpt calls with blocked caller ID. Please unblock your number and call again".

Blocking caller ID may violate FDCPA.

[tobee43]

We have Verizon, and I typically do block calls that I know are from creditors, but this number is showing as unavailable - so don't have a way of figuring out where it is coming from.

ahhhhhhh yes, we got a few of those as well....but we never even before these bad times ever got those calls anyway.

we are also lucky with respect that the phone system we have in our house as well as the "block" feature....even so...i report them to the FTC....but as you pointed out that's hard to do with no number coming up.

we had one number that came up...000-000-0000!!!!!!! what the heck?????

[drowning123]

Seems like this is the latest scam. A woman called me about an outstanding debt with Washington Mutual. Never did business with them. I owe nothing to Washington Mutual. She read off the last 4 digits of the debtor, and of course they weren't mine. About 2 weeks later another woman called about the same debt. Boy did I let her have it. It's been maybe 2 weeks now and no one else has called yet. I'm still waiting. We'll see.

[tobee43]

It may cost a monthly fee, but you can do "Anonymous Call Block" - if a caller blocks their caller ID they hear a message saying "the person you called doesn't accpt calls with blocked caller ID. Please unblock your number and call again".

Blocking caller ID may violate FDCPA.

good point...that fact that they block the incoming call could be in violation....however, most likely they are "dancin" around the laws...knowing them and the way they work....i mean really now...a 000-000-0000 number...

[BrokeinMD]

I got a little off topic with my last post, but it's made me think of the different calls that I've received right up to filing my bk. I have also received strange calls of spam like online job opportunities. I wonder if it's a cc company tactic to release your personal info out to scamsters, or if these calls of debts that are not yours are a way for them to try to pull info out of you?

[ssmdem]

I got a little off topic with my last post, but it's made me think of the different calls that I've received right up to filing my bk. I have also received strange calls of spam like online job opportunities. I wonder if it's a cc company tactic to release your personal info out to scamsters, or if these calls of debts that are not yours are a way for them to try to pull info out of you?

I've wondered the same thing. The fact that he said "In July, you told us you had lost your job," makes me wonder if our actual credit card companies didn't sell my info. That is about the time frame that I was talking to my credit card companies and trying to work something out. We haven't received any phone calls on our home phone from them, which is the number that our credit card companies got responses from us on, but they did have my cell phone too - I just blocked them so that it wouldn't ring.

If they call again, I'm asking for an account number, amount they say I owe and their contact information -- no admitting anything from me. If they won't provide it - I know they won't - I'm saying when you can conduct yourself legally we can have a conversation...until then, goodbye. I'll just hit the ignore button on my phone after then. If it were really my loan, they'd have my primary number - which they obviously don't.

[ssmdem]

It may cost a monthly fee, but you can do "Anonymous Call Block" - if a caller blocks their caller ID they hear a message saying "the person you called doesn't accpt calls with blocked caller ID. Please unblock your number and call again".

Blocking caller ID may violate FDCPA.

If it continues, I may just look into this. We used to have that on our home phone - but disconnected it because I have several friends who have unlisted numbers, and it was blocking their calls too.

[Charlie777]

Check your phone provider, I think you can give them a code they can punch in to go through...