How the hell should I know?

[firecat88]

IANAL but about collection agencies, because of third party laws, they are not allowed to state who they are or the nature of their business unless they are speaking to the person they are looking for.

*waves hand* I do collections work now so I can tell you exactly what she was doing. She was attempting to see if you knew the person who had the number or any other small bits of information that could potentially be useful for locating that person. As a rule when we are calling unless we have reach the person who is responsible for the bill e may not say who we are (unless you ask us) and we certainly won't tell you why we are calling. Violates the Fair credit/debit act or what ever its called that protects the consumer against unfair collection practices and privacy laws.

In my case not only are we looking for the customer, we are also trying to figure out where our collateral is. In a case like yours I'll usually ask when you got the number. Helps me narrow my search down.

Huh. o.o I genuinely didn't know that that's how collections agencies work. It does make sense, though. And, believe me, if I had this lady's new number, I would be more than happy to give it. @_@ Because I'm more annoyed with her and her husband (because we get calls for him too) at this point than I am with the collection agents.

[Rosakala]

Each collection company is going to have different methods on how they attempt to locate the person they are trying to reach. I imagine collecting on secured debt and unsecured debt is vastly different. 3rd party collection agencies tend to be the worst when it comes to breaking the laws on how you are legally allowed to collect the money owed. Or at least that has been my experience so far in the collections world.

[MadMike]

At least they didn't accuse you of lying.

That happened to my wife's upstairs neighbor, back when she still had her old apartment. They refused to believe he wasn't the person they were trying to reach, and would not stop calling him. The worst part was that he was a truck driver who drove at night, so they were disrupting his sleep by calling him during the day. Eventually he had to switch to an unlisted phone number.

Lucky for me, when they started calling me trying to reach my ex, they took my word for it when I told her she didn't live there anymore. I feel bad about telling them I didn't have her new number, but I didn't want to get in the middle of it. I had enough trouble without her calling me up and ripping into me for giving her number to a collection agency.

3rd party collection agencies tend to be the worst when it comes to breaking the laws on how you are legally allowed to collect the money owed.

I'm getting harassed by this one called "NCO Financial Systems." They keep leaving a prerecorded message that tells me that "This is an attempt to collect a debt, and any information given can be used blah blah blah," and asks me to call them back. They don't ask for anyone by name, and I never got anything from them in the mail. My number is listed, so if they have my number, they can find my address. I've been in the same house for 14 years now. The whole thing seems scammy to me.

I googled the number they call from, and there are a lot of horror stories about them using shady and even downright illegal tactics to try to collect, not even caring whether or not the debt is actually valid. My wife googled them by name, and apparently IF you can even get through to a person, they won't talk to you unless you give them your SSN and date of birth. Oh HELL no! That is not happening! I'm surprised they don't want the mother's maiden name as well.

It's always that same robocall, whether I pick it up, or the machine gets it, so I don't have a chance to ask who they're looking for. I wouldn't be surprised if they're looking for my ex, even though I haven't been with her for 18 years now. I finally ordered Phonetray to deal with the problem. It isn't perfect -- the biggest drawback is with Caller ID itself, where it doesn't display the number until after the first ring -- but it helps deal with them and all the other scammers. They still keep calling almost every day, but they get the "disconnected" message, complete with the tri-tone, and then they get hung up on. And then about a week ago, they started calling under a different number, which I also added to the block list. If I haven't called them back after the first 20 times, what the hell makes them think I'm going to call them back now???