Why you should not answer the phone!

[franken55406]

Are we to easy and gullible?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/magazine/17credit-t.html?ref=your-money

[LuciluS]

I saw this article the other day. Our Attorney advised us NOT to answer the phone unless we knew who was calling. DH is gone from Sun am - Fri. pm as he is in OTR Truck Driver. I am disabled and home 98% of the time.

When the phone quits ringing, I lookup the number on the Internet. Yep, CC, OC, JDB. Even had a JDB call me & it showed up as a cell phone number. Dang futher muckers are getting sneaker every day!

I've heard they can trace if you pick up your messages through your telephone company. All of our phones flash when we have a message. After I know it's one of the above calling, I call my answer phone #, punch in my code, punch 1 to pickup messages & immediately hit 3 to delete. Don't know if it works or not.

Haven't been served or recv'd any Certified letters as we quit paying all but 1 credit card last Sept.

Luci

[catleg]

Great article, thanks. ( I can't afford the print edition of the Times anymore!)

[BigJohn]

I had one Junk Debt Buyer call me today about some other person's debt. I just can't get rid of them. They have the wrong person.

So when they called today, I told them I googled their number and told them they are one of the nastiest junk debt buyers in existence. I told them on the internet it says about 30% of their employees are sexual predators and have to register with their local governments. I asked the caller if he stalk little kids. The caller had to leave.... hopefully for good.

[Bell30656]

My personal experience was that by not answering the phone was the wrong move. Aggressive collection agents:

• Called my home and cell repeatedly (even on the hour, every hour)
• Called others with my surname in the local phone book in an attempt to "locate" me.
• Called numerous random extensions at my work in an attempt to "locate" me even leaving messages.
• Called two of my neighbors (Isn't 411.com's reverse address wonderful?)

After that experience I sent them the certified letter with the don't call me, knowing they would ignore that and could legally. I also demanded that the calls to my work stop as my work had a policy against personal calls, we didn't but I made one that day. As an executive manager the last thing I want is subordinates getting calls about me from XXXXX Bank or whatever.

I began to always answer the telephone. I even forwarded my home phone to my BlackBerry so I wouldn't miss calls. When answering the calls I would get no more than one call a day from any creditor. I would calmly verify that I was the person they were looking for, that I was unwilling to discuss the matter in question and that in accord with GA law I was recording the phone conversations... I wasn't but they didn't need to know that. Most terminated the calls at that point.

Those that stayed on the line I remained firm with. No matter what Mr. or Ms. Dirtbag Collector said, I adamantly refused to discuss the debt. Once they agreed that I was the party that they had sought, I then told them to have a nice day and terminated the call.

The point of this post is that you not only need to be very careful with what you say on the telephone BUT what the consequences can be by avoiding the calls.

[Brighterdays]

The point of this post is that you not only need to be very careful with what you say on the telephone BUT what the consequences can be by avoiding the calls.

Thanks for the insight, I never thought about why they call 10 times a day. Probably cause you didn't asnwer the first 9 times. My Bk lawyer says to just give the creditors and such her number. Does this really stop the calls?

[Bell30656]

Brighterdays, in my experience it does. As soon as I retained my attorney my phone conversations changed. Being the ******* that I am, I decided to really make the collectors sweat.

The agent would ask if I was Bell30656 and I would state that I was. Then they would start their spiel but I would stop them. "I've identified myself to your satisfaction now I want you to do the same. Please clearly state your name and the name of the company that you are purporting to represent." I'd let them get that out and then I would go with... "Oh, on this matter I've retained the legal services of Dewey, Cheatum and Howe based out of Conyers, Georgia."

The collector would now usually ask something like; Are you filing bankruptcy? What chapter? What is the case number of your bankruptcy or what is the lawyers phone number? My response? "I'm sorry, now that I've informed you in this recorded conversation that I've retained legal representation on this matter in accord with Federal Law and Georgia Code you must now direct any further inquiries to the firm of Dewey, Cheatum and Howe."

Any calls after that? There were a couple. I asked them for the legal name of the company, the registered agent and the address for service of civil papers. When queried as to why I wanted this information, I just told them that my lawyers had asked me to gather it from anyone dumb enough to contact me again after I'd informed them in a recorded conversation that I'd retained legal representation.

Now the calls have all ceased, the bankruptcy is over and dang if I'm not bored. Some one call me up and threaten to sue me...

[LuciluS]

Thanks for the insight, I never thought about why they call 10 times a day. Probably cause you didn't asnwer the first 9 times. My Bk lawyer says to just give the creditors and such her number. Does this really stop the calls?

I've given all of our CCs' our Attorney's name, address and phone number Twice! Of course, we quit paying late last Sept. So most of them were late in Oct. 2008.

Our BK Attorney told us not to answer the phone. He is a BK Attorney in the business for 20 years. He said if/when a Collection Agency or JDB gets serious, they will send a Certified Letter or file something in Court...then He will take Action until we can file Chapter 7 on 9/30/09.

Personally, we don't care if they call our neighbors or Family. The only one on either side of our family who doesn't know is my Dad & I haven't used his name or had my maiden name in over 35 years. If he got a phone call, he would just give them my phone number..if they kept on talking, he would say I don't know anything about her finances.

I don't want to talk to any of them. It makes me nervous. The only one who calls at least 4 -5 times a week is NCO Financial. Screw em!

Luci

[Brighterdays]

I've given all of our CCs' our Attorney's name, address and phone number Twice! Of course, we quit paying late last Sept. So most of them were late in Oct. 2008.

Our BK Attorney told us not to answer the phone. He is a BK Attorney in the business for 20 years. He said if/when a Collection Agency or JDB gets serious, they will send a Certified Letter or file something in Court...then He will take Action until we can file Chapter 7 on 9/30/09.

Personally, we don't care if they call our neighbors or Family. The only one on either side of our family who doesn't know is my Dad & I haven't used his name or had my maiden name in over 35 years. If he got a phone call, he would just give them my phone number..if they kept on talking, he would say I don't know anything about her finances.

I don't want to talk to any of them. It makes me nervous. The only one who calls at least 4 -5 times a week is NCO Financial. Screw em!

Luci

how soon did they start calling after you were late in October?

[LuciluS]

how soon did they start calling after you were late in October?

I think we got a a few calls in Nov. All called by the 20th of Dec. When we didn't file in Jan. as I told them (wrong thing to do) they called again in the middle to late Feb. thru early Mar. This time I just gave them our Attorney's name, address (some wouldn't take it) & phone #. A lot of them asked when we were filing. I just repeated the information again and told them to call our Attorney and hung up.

I spoke to NCO a couple of weeks ago as the number showed up as a Cell phone out of AZ & DH has an Uncle who uses his cell phone to call. She was an Arse to deal with. This specific CC is in my name only & I received Social Security Disability. She knew that & told me she was going to run an Asset something (I don't recall the exact name). I told her Go Ahead and hung up on her. I was shaking when I got off the phone.

I'm not good at dealing with Creditors. It's hard enough praying we don't get sued until we are able to file on 9/30/09.

Luci

[Bell30656]

LucilUS, don't fret about being sued. Even if one of them does file suit against you and you are served, it is a long way from judgment. Do a bit of research and find out if it costs anything to file an answer in your state's court.

I had three suits filed against me before I filed my bankruptcy. Two suits were by the same JDB on different debts. I was served on the first one in November 2007 and the second one in February 2008. Neither of them ever made it to court prior to my filing for bankruptcy in December of 2008!!!

The third was a small claims court case that I was served on I believe in November 2008. None of them mattered because the bankruptcy killed them all. In Georgia filing an answer is free. I filed an answer, denied everything, named every affirmative defense I could think of (actually the statute had expired on one of the two) and dealt with interrogatories.

I did it all in plain English with no lawyers assistance. I was simply objected to ALL of their questions and I made sure to ask them a ton of questions myself. They sent me a demand for production of documents, so I sent them a list myself. It was all just wrangling.

Overall, it cost me a few bucks in certified mail fees and $50 for a mandatory arbitration that we had to attend. Arbitration was fun, they wanted $6,000 plus $5,000 in fees on a 7 year old debt... (GA SOL is 4 or 6 years) I wanted $1,000 on a FDCPA and OCGA violation. Needless to say we didn't have a meeting of the minds.

[LuciluS]

Thanks Bell for the words of reassurance and Wisdom!

Luci

[eddiep]

Once I told my creditors that I was filing and gave them my attorney's name and number back in feb the calls almost completely stopped. It did take a couple days but all is quiet.

[optimistic1]

Right, and the only reason they might call back is because your account got charged off and sent to a CA, and then you can stop them cold with a DV and CD, which leaves them with three options, send it back to the original creditor, move it to a new CA, or sue you after providing you with the DV info.

[ItsJustMe]

Once I told my creditors that I was filing and gave them my attorney's name and number back in feb the calls almost completely stopped. It did take a couple days but all is quiet.

So....even if you haven't filed yet, they stopped calling?

We haven't filed. Have to wait until Sept/Oct for income to drop (we're just above a 7, and also in the middle of a loan mod). We are 4-6 weeks late on all of our CCs. They've started to get REALLY aggressive . We finally have started telling them we are filing BK. They want an attorneys name, but we haven't retained one yet. Today (SUNDAY) a CA for AmEx called my parents HOME OFFICE (a business number) looking for us. I can only imagine who else they have called . DH is going to end up in all kinds of trouble at work if they've been calling there. Seriously. I didn't think this would be happening SO SOON! Multiple calls a day about the same account, and obviuosly they've been looking for us elsewhere. We don't really talk to DHs parents - AND his Dads name is the same as his - so no doubt they've been calling there, too!

Anyways. If I go ahead and retain and attorney and give them that info, will the calls stop? Or at least STOP CALLING random people in search of us? I don't mind talking to them, but GOD we answer every single phone call from them, many times a day, there is no reason in the world they need to be calling MY PARENTS at work!