Hoisted by Someone Else's Petard
I don't know what that means either.
My phone number is used. I got it secondhand, battered and dingy and more than a little worn out.
I didn't realize it at the time – the phone company let me choose, and there's something fun about my number that made it appealing.
Except that it has been used. A quick reverse phone lookup would have revealed that, but I didn't think to try.
Had my number's previous owner been someone different, maybe it wouldn't have been a problem. Maybe then I would have received calls inviting me to celebrity soirees or Muffy's weekend manse or a chocolate fondue tasting.
But no. Instead I get some debtor's previous number. Oh, she bought and she bought, from ever so many places, but not a bill did she pay. Then, like so many before her, she ran off, leaving behind pain and heartbreak and my poor abused number.
So now I get all of her calls from angry creditors, four or five every day. I know a little something (very little) about debtor protection laws, but dang if it helps me if said calls aren't aimed at the actual debtor or particularly abusive (and, while annoying, they are not). I would explain that I am not her, but mostly I just get the messages later because I'm never home, or if I do answer it's just an automated message on the other end. None provides information on who the creditor is or how to get the calls to stop. I suppose I could call the numbers and hunt down the source and try to convince them that I'm not who they think I am and maybe even threaten legal action if they don't stop.
But geeeeez. That's, like, hard.
6 comments:
From my former life as a, gulp, collector - call the numbers, tell them nicely that you aren't who they think and then tell them to put you on their do not call list. if they call again, report them for violating the do not call list laws. We had to take someone off if they specifically asked us too, so i assume the law has to be close to the same now, if not more strict.
Why don't you just change your phone number?
I used to have a great phone number, but it previously belonged to a doctor's office, so day and night, we were receiving calls. I called the phone company, explained what happened, and they happily (and at no cost) changed my number.
Won't the calls eventually stop at some point?
As I, too, was a former collector, no, the calls will not stop until the debt is paid. When trying to find someone, you called every known number, regardless of what happened at that number last time. There were several times when a "wrong number" ended up being the right one. You can also try Danielle's suggestion. That may slow the calls down.
Oh, pooh. I don't wanna change my number (I like the tic-tac-toe effect). I guess I'll try answering when they call and see if they comply when I ask them not to call.
When I was growing up my parents bought a 1-500 number that was supposed to follow our family around as we moved. We always also had a local number, but the 500 number was a trusty way to find us when we had already moved 2 times that year and you couldn't remember where we were. (Dad worked for a big corporation that liked to move families with small children. They were the devil.)
When I was about 15 I started getting dirty phone calls in the middle of the night. It turned out that an adult magazine had accidentally printed our phone number on an ad for a sex line.
I still think I would rather get those calls than the ones you are getting.
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