You should have had an idea of DNC coverage from the start. The following URL links to the FTC FAQ page which the DNC site nearly begged everyone to read before you registered your numbers. See items 28 through 32.
ftc.gov

Lowery, Daniel, et al: Debt collectors are notoriously deaf to verbal requests. It's not so much incompetence as the policy of lawbreaking debt collectors across the industry to assume you are a liar until you give an answer which gets one paid.

To a ''not me'' case I always recommend putting the agency on notice, just as you would if you were the target and the debt claim was invalid. Send a ''cease-communication'' notice via USPS Certified with return card. This is the method promoted by the FTC and many consumer watchdogs, and the only way to set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their risk of a lawsuit from you. You may already be due some payback if you can prove you've endured abusive or misleading treatment in an effort to collect debt.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

If you can suspend your bashing on our legally elected President for two minutes of non-hate, you might realize that if anyone is guilty of a false front it is this debt collector. Posing as any government agency is a serious violation of federal law, the FDCPA, which can get them sued by each victim of such a lie. Ditto for Andy's story of BCR trying to get a non-debtor to cover the bills of the long deceased.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

Here are the other recent personalities of ''f'':

''Linda'' ... whocalled.us
''Dan'' ... whocalled.us
''Mandy'' ... whocalled.us
''Fan'' ... whocalled.us
(fat-fingered keyboard for the ''Dan'' alias, I expect)

The owner of ''Advanced Handyman Services located in Katy'' should demand a refund for this crummy spam posing as an online advertising and/or SEO plan.

Interrupted: You might sue for harassment but not for violating the Telemarketing Sales Rule, which is the law linked to DNC. Debt collectors are not sales reps to you, therefore exempt. You were correct that your calling rep was required to give you the name (or at least the acronym) of her employer. That alone won't give you much of a FDCPA case, I'm afraid.

Bill: What is ''obvious'' is that you don't comprehend the scope and usefulness of DNC. Here's ''the law'' you wanted ... the one ''Irritated'' is using correctly:
ftc.gov

The call time you have reported is perfectly legal unless you have already given PRA written orders to the contrary. If the debt at issue is not yours or ''out of stat'' as in Irritated's case, you can follow his/her example and send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. PRA is like other high volume agencies in that your verbal demands will not be taken seriously.

Grandma, your Do-Not-Call registration is not supposed to ''stop them''. The following URL links to the FTC FAQ page which the DNC site nearly begged everyone to read before you registered your numbers. See items 28 through 32.
ftc.gov

Your best option to halt the calling is the same advice I gave to Kitty a month ago.

Nothing ''is wrong with this picture'', RB. Read the federal rules for yourself:
ftc.gov
ftc.gov

You can either continue to report nuisance calls here for an additional six months or take away this collector's permission to call, on paper and through USPS Certified as advised by the FTC and many debt problem experts.

The agency's autodialer need not be located in California just because you see that in the NANP reference.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

Scam callers like this do not need to ''find'', ''get'', or ''have'' your phone number any more than you need to own the numeral '7' before throwing dice to win at a gambling table. These fake survey/cruise callers are out of control and beyond easy reach. For now, file complaints with the FTC and attorneys general.

Nothing happened to the federal Do-Not-Call registry, if that's what you meant. The following URL links to the FTC FAQ page which the DNC site nearly begged everyone to read before you registered your numbers. See items 28 through 32.
ftc.gov

Concerned Women For America is likely begging for money through a commercial fundraiser, which does not share the DNC exemption of its clients. These call centers in general are not to be trusted since they are very much for-profit and pocket most of what these campaigns collect. At times the ''charity'' group is itself a profit enterprise, compounding the deception. While charity calls are exempt from Federal DNC, commercial fundraisers are expected to keep an internal no-call list and add any number upon request. Break that order, the FTC declares, and ''the telemarketer may be subject to a fine of up to $16,000.''

You might want to notify Bill Me Later directly rather than complain here on a web page your caller does not control or read.

Turtle, your caller does not maintain this site or this web page. Your caller is not going to dutifully study random forum complaints and cannot magically determine which numbers should not be called based on anonymous comments.

Drj, your caller does not maintain this site or this web page. Your caller is not going to dutifully study random forum complaints and cannot magically determine which numbers should not be called based on anonymous comments.

RS Group appears to also answer to ''Resolution Services Group'' and ''RSG Consulting Services''. The Delaware LLC was freshly established in June 2011, so there is not much of a comment trail on various message boards.

I will hazard some guesses: There are no ''papers'' to serve, nor any bench warrant as implied. They are using you to create false shame and supposedly flush your daughter from hiding. Possibly you were called first under a pretense that RSG needed to skip trace for her and she is ''running from debt responsibility''. Possibly the debt claim is false, or there is flimsy proof at best. If my hunches are correct, the debt collector is violating the FDCPA in several ways and can be hosed by your daughter in court.

Continued pestering of you and other persons over the debt claim can be considered harassment and give you a legal cause of action as well. A simple letter revoking call permission is enough to give you standing to sue if your demands are ignored. Meanwhile your daughter should dispute the claim and set her own limits on the collection agency's contact with her. All notices should be sent via USPS Certified with return card.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

Greg, your complaint was misfired. The following URL links to the FTC FAQ page which the DNC site nearly begged everyone to read before you registered your numbers. See items 28 through 32.
ftc.gov

For the calls to cease, you and Ms. Pierce must *directly* inform the caller, not make pleas in a message forum the call center does not manage or read.

Ms. Pierce, your caller does not maintain this site or this web page. Your caller is not going to dutifully study random forum complaints and cannot magically determine which numbers should not be called based on anonymous comments. A scam caller like this in particular will not respond to anything less than a legal summons to end the calls. Again, see my comment from 30 April for more details on this call category.

Jolie, see my reply in the other thread you started:
whocalled.us

Mistrust of any ''wrong number'' claim is standard procedure at all the rogue collection agencies. Send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. This is the method promoted by the FTC and many consumer watchdogs, and the only way to set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their risk of a lawsuit from you.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

United Collection Bureau may break laws to seize assets, but is considered ''legitimate'' like its industry peers. You don't need a valid debt or a derogatory trade line on your credit reports to be hassled by debt collectors. They call third parties to alleged debtors all the time for permitted skip tracing purposes, or often pretending it's a trace to annoy and shame an intended target whose location is already known.

To a ''not me'' case I always recommend putting the agency on notice, just as you would if you were the target and the debt claim was invalid. Send a ''cease-communication'' notice via USPS Certified with return card. This is the method promoted by the FTC and many consumer watchdogs, and the only way to set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their risk of a lawsuit from you. You may already be due some payback if you can prove you've endured abusive or misleading treatment in an effort to collect debt.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

The proper spelling is Brachfeld Law Group, aka Brachfeld & Associates.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

Okie, maybe you want to take your grievance to Citi and/or whatever call center it hired. Your caller does not maintain this site or this web page. Your caller is not going to dutifully study random forum complaints and cannot magically determine which numbers should not be called based on anonymous comments.

WHY

I'm sure many others here would like a response, Ms. Buckland. Ultimately you will have to confront the source of your email, which does not maintain this site or this web page. It is unwise to publish your contact data in an open forum where any data harvester and scammer can find it.

From the volume of conflicting comments in this thread, this may be a CitiGroup number, a third party debt collector illegally in disguise, or a criminal hunting for bank accounts to exploit. In theory, someone wishing to pose as your creditor would be smart to spoof a bank's real CSR number. Contacting the bank yourself by a known secure channel would be a logical first step to clearing the fog. Making pleas here in a message forum and giving away personal information will only make you more vulnerable to the suspicious behavior you might wish to prevent.

Does ''Jeff'', who is also ''Jim'' ... whocalled.us
... who is also ''GreeeMeie'' ... whocalled.us

really think anyone is fooled by this spam? Of course ''Dwayne's Quality Automotive in Englewood'' uses this number, because Dwayne was likely sold some cheap SEO program, but got this rubbish instead.

Is this really another fake reverse directory spam? Is this all "USA Plumbing & Sewer in West Dundee" gets for paying some fool for "internet marketing"?

"Thanks to all of" whom? Yours is the first and only call comment. No thanks for not reporting who "they" are.

What did "Tom's Tree Work in Kewaskum" have to pay Spammer Dan (a/k/a "sab", "dannty", "Devious Designs", et al) to ask this same fake question for the eight-hundredth time?

What does it say when "Megasystems Security in Houston" will hire a spammer from Eastern Europe to drop some more of this fake reverse directory trash to promote itself?

Barney: Ten days ago on 800Notes and today on WhoCallsMe you pegged this as a Pentagroup Financial number. Might have been nice if you'd mentioned the same here. AACC and PRA are both debt buyers capable of collecting their own accounts, but could conceivably assign their scraps to other agencies. The dispute process is not changed in any case.

Pentagroup is in Houston and does not to my knowledge run a call center in RI, which would make calls from this number deceptive, therefore leading to FDCPA claims. Blocking and ignoring calls is not much of a strategy when you are already empowered to limit or halt them with a simple written notice.

All: Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

Sami, the ''theory'' you cite is a favorite canard of the ''Pay Youse Bills'' trolls, ignoring the fact that runaway skip tracing is arguably the greatest problem debt collectors cause. This has been covered in better detail eariler in this thread.

To a ''not me'' case I always recommend putting the agency on notice, just as you would if you were the target and the debt claim was invalid. Send a ''cease-communication'' notice via USPS Certified with return card. This is the method promoted by the FTC and many consumer watchdogs, and the only way to set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their risk of a lawsuit from you. You may already be due some payback if you can prove you've endured abusive or misleading treatment in an effort to collect debt.

You can get the whole thing done in one one curt paragraph. Some variant of this will do: ''These are the affected phone numbers, I cannot help you with your problem, stop calling about this matter.'' In my ''shut-ups'' I also like to briefly review when I was called and what I was told by live reps and/or canned messages. This is done in a calm ''inside voice'' without making threats or citing rules. I also print the relevant USPS tracking number someplace near the page footer. My little parts and accessories establish the background for an escalated dispute, particularly if I encountered resistance or frustration during past calls.

The federal rules again for those who missed 'em:
ftc.gov

Let's draw a different picture. Spammer Dan can answer his own question since the owners of "Victoria's Vintage Photos" think they got a great deal on SEO, but got this lame fake reverse directory spam instead.

Your AG was correct, CV. Collection attorneys are defined as debt collectors by the FTC. This might be almost too obvious for regulators to mention, except that so many debt lawyers have tried to argue that they are magically exempt from the FDCPA just because they use a judge instead of a phone to collect. They have all been shot down every time that card was played.

I'm so glad Manny thinks Kim is such a dear peach. Manny, of course, could be a shill and peaches have pits large enough to choke people. Don't be lulled by any sweet talking collections rep. You have rights and the collector's tacit job is in part to deny them. Read more about them from the source:

ftc.gov

Debra, I've been promoting the industry laws in this thread for almost fourteen months. You can use them like anyone else, and review what I've had to say about why many collectors shy from leaving messages. If RPM is skip tracing for some other person, you will *never* get any answers except by voice. There may also be an abandoned call issue, a very common irritating byproduct of autodialer use.

Your best solution to RPM's nuisance calls is not technological but a simple matter of notification. Once you send a letter (USPS CMRR always) revoking permission to call whatever numbers you want silent, a smart collector won't dare disturb those phones again. A stupid one risks a lawsuit from you to force compliance and pay a damage award.

I would agree that third party collectors are not to be trusted with any payment, but frequently their lender clients don't give you a choice. Agreements between them are common which prevent the original creditor from selling out its hired gun, which expects a percentage of all accounts collected. Try calling the bank for a settlement and the rep will immediately transfer you straight back to the collection agency. This among many other reasons is why raising proper disputes with collectors is critical.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

What ''reviews here''? You're the first to comment.

Yesterday (15 May 2012) LBA was penalized a record-breaking $3.1 million by the Federal Trade Commission. Official story linked below.


Debt Collectors Settle with FTC, Agree to Stop Deceiving and Abusing Consumers
Consumers Were Subjected to Collection Efforts for Magazine Subscription Debts They Did Not Owe, FTC Alleges
ftc.gov

Here's what all that Hard Working and Truth Bringing at LBA's little fraud factory got them yesterday: a fat $3.1 million bill from the Federal Trade Commission. This debt is real, unlike the kind these arrogant trolls have tried to collect. The total civil penalty places Luebke Baker & Associates at Number One on the scoreboard of highest FTC fines of debt collectors. About 75% of the total civil penalty was for FDCPA violations, plainly obvious from the complaints here and elsewhere. Randall's comment here from four years ago regarding the source of LBA's bogus debt accounts also rings true.


Debt Collectors Settle with FTC, Agree to Stop Deceiving and Abusing Consumers
Consumers Were Subjected to Collection Efforts for Magazine Subscription Debts They Did Not Owe, FTC Alleges
ftc.gov

(excerpts)

... The defendants, who handle collection of hundreds of thousands of accounts each year, violated the FTC Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, and the Telemarketing Sales Rule, according to the complaint. ..... The Luebke defendants allegedly collected on debts for magazine subscriptions despite the fact that the FTC had successfully sued the company that originally sold the magazine subscriptions for deceptive marketing. .....

The complaint also alleges that the Luebke defendants:
- illegally masked their identity and sent false information over caller ID, falsely posing as Ed McMahon, attorneys from a law firm, and other entities;
- falsely told consumers that magazine subscription debts are exempt from the statute of limitations; and
- illegally threatened to garnish wages and take other unintended legal actions.

Might the name in prior reports above be a horrid misspelling of debt collector Pinnacle Financial?

Whatever the name, no collection agency needs to care about the federal DNC list. As non-sales callers, all debt collectors are exempt from filtering out any numbers registered on a no-call list. The FTC never kept this a secret, and practically begged you all to read the linked FAQ at registration time.

ftc.gov

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

A recent comment on 800Notes has a different story:
''This Airflow Air Conditioning Company poses as the air conditioning company that you are currently using to trick you into setting up your yearly maintenance with them.''

That is hardly ''very nice and honest'' behavior. Thanks for spamming. You might try for your GED so you can learn to write a valid English sentence.

Good question, Jack. Wish I had a good answer. There is no published number of complaints which equals the critical mass needed to motivate a civil action against phone frauds. I can kind of understand why the DNC site would try to prevent a form of ballot stuffing. Seems to me the way around that is to use the other channels I've suggested and/or putting your gripes on real creamy paper, which must at least be physically handled before it is shelved.

Complaints to the DNC site do no more than form a pool of intelligence which can be very useful to regulators and prosecutors. No civil dispute strike force is waiting for your remarks to slide down a firepole and solve your personal problem. The FTC tells you that straight out if you bother to read the rules. What I'm suggesting is to be less passive and more pushy. I'm not saying regulators have combatted abuses to my satisfaction or that what they have given us to work with is perfect. I am saying there is no room for complaint about ''da Gubmint'' until we have used every tool in their box.

Jack, I'm sure the FTC would be quite puzzled to hear that ''complaints bring no result'' since it has shut down several credit reprice scam firms since 2010, based largely on complaints to the Commission and attorneys general. At least one scammer was forced to refund everyone swindled, and the principals of another firm last year were facing criminal charges, meaning they could go to Big Boy Jail. ''Remember this'' the next time ''Heather'' and ''Rachel'' call.

The thing you impatient types are slow to understand is how elusive these scammers can be. It takes a long time to disentangle spoofed numbers and shell companies and find the right kingpins to haul into court. It takes even longer if people do not report every single violative call to the right desks.

This may be the usual dirty debt collector within the U.S. or a fake collector from overseas. Either way their empty threats of arrest, imprisonment, lawsuit filing, and/or asset seizure violate federal and state laws. Try to get a business name and share it with the readers. By federal law this name cannot be withheld.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

On 800Notes in the ''Debt Collection Calls'' forum is a thread titled ''Fake payday loan collection scams - Please list new numbers here [2]''. My notes and advice on the payday loan collection thugs, updated Oct 2011, can be seen on the lead page. Also on that site you'll find comments from a major network news producer gathering material for an investigative report, with a special lookout for clean audio recordings of the South Asian thugs.

Sirik: There is no ''Mark'' in this thread and you are the first to report this phone number. Raise your aim before you fire.

Judith Smith and Morgan, these calls are motivated by commercial and not political interests. The flimsy survey is a limp end-run around exemptions to the Telemarketing Sales Rule and the DNC registry. It takes very little study of the mystery call sites to realize this. These calls scream fraud and have been going on for months under shifting business names.

Fact is, survey calls are not exempt when a commercial pitch is somehow attached. The linked sites should help with your homework on applicable laws.

fcc.gov
epic.org
business.ftc.gov
ftc.gov

You might have to ''go visit them'' in another country. These cruise hawkers with their fake surveys have likely gone to great effort to hide themselves behind spoofed numbers, many appearing to come from the northwest US.

Why, you're going to pay me?

Nothing has happened to the federal DNC registry. Something did happen to the reading comprehension skill you were supposed to acquire in school. Linked below are the rules which the DNC site *twice* coaxed you to read and which *you agreed to* when you registered.

ftc.gov
See items 28 and 38 in particular.

Criminals calling through spoofed numbers and giving false identities do not care about your registration, and you cannot expect regulators to swoop down on zip lines to help you every time your phone rings. You must do your part and report violative calls to the FTC and attorneys general.

VS, I would imagine Granddad could use a few extra grand ... in a damage award, that is. You should have little trouble claiming actual damages on top of the $1K statutory fine in a FDCPA suit, and no more trouble finding a sharp consumer lawyer to work on contingency if desired. Needless terror, lies, intimidation, false shame, mental distress .... oh yeah, I would pay admission to watch P&C's counsel explain all that to a judge.

Document every scrap of that encounter in print while it remains fresh. Keep recorded phone audio safe if any exists. Your stepdaughters's Mom as legal guardian could in theory file her own separate suit, since that household is also being targeted by this creepy call.

Commercial fundraisers are not considered ''criminals'', and the person who needs to stop their calls is throwing a hissy fit in your mirror.

Linked below is a little essay from Jan 2012 about how I put the brakes on a major commercial fundraising firm and won back some peace for my household.

whocalled.us

They're not calling to borrow a cup of flour. That call time is way past the default legal hours and can be rolled into a nice lawsuit full of other violations.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

John-slash-Jack: You don't need a valid debt or a derogatory trade line on your credit reports to be hassled by debt collectors. They call third parties to alleged debtors all the time for permitted skip tracing purposes, or often pretending it's a trace to annoy and shame an intended target whose location is already known.

US federal law prohibits sneaky deceptive tactics from debt collectors. I'm in the camp which believes that the popular industry practice of spoofing a local nummber violates the FDCPA, once it's determined that the agency does not run a call center in your state.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

Karen, what you've missed from the *rest* of the Telemarketing Sales Rule is that you as a citizen don't see any of that $16K fine. That's strictly for an action brought by the FTC or an Attorney General. The TSR has no private right of action unless you can prove at minimum a highly improbable $50K in actual damages.

All is not lost if you still feel litigious. Linked below you can find my story from four months ago about how I put the fear of telephony gods into an irritating major commercial fundraiser, setting a stiff price tag on each future call it may dare to place. Thus far it has not dared.

whocalled.us

Right away, Ms. Huntley ... We'll get your number off that list that we don't keep because we're not using one in the first place to blast entire cities with our crappy calls. Not to worry, we can magically determine which phone numbers you would like us to not disturb from an anonymous comment on a mystery call website we are not reading and do not control in any way.

Jenn, since we are scammers often hiding behind spoofed numbers, shell companies, and international borders, we don't care one hoot about your puny Telemarketing Sales Rule or your DNC number registrations or your whiny pleas to quit calling you. If you can't find us you can't sue us under TCPA ... so there, bleeaahh!

People, whatever you do, please don't report every single violative call from us and our kin to the FTC and attorneys general. We might one day get our call center doors locked behind us like several other credit reprice scam firms have since 2010, and then we would all be out of work! We might even be forced to pay back people we've suckered out of their money for some bogus credit repair plan. Dear lord, I heard some peers in our business might be relocated to prison! You don't want us jobless do you?! You can't expect us to wear orange jumpsuits and pick up your highway trash, can you? We could get a nasty sunburn or worse!

I've read this comment eight times and I still don't understand it. Let's name who ''they'' are before we talk about what may be legal.

Few people want to be sued. Don't let the hot air get to you. FCSI is trying to use your own fear against you. Again, you need to study what the FTC has to say and realize that you are in control here. You can get that piddling debt erased and a damage award besides with the civil claims you can raise.

Calling from a different number may not accomplish anything unless it is the one number you might designate as ''convenient'' for contact. Any number you dial from may be detected through ANI. You can try requesting a mailing address, which will be a further test of the agency's attention to your rights. If the rep balks, add that resistance to your complaint and find your own answer. You could see if the address posted here six years ago is still valid, or hunt for a current one. I often have good luck on the Manta directory or one of the debt collector discussion forums when I have business name confusion.

Uhhm, no, debt collectors garnish wages after they secure a court order. Compliance of any kind with debt collectors is not required of consumers by the FDCPA or state law that I can recall. Should collectors ''get nasty'' and make threats and otherwise make it hard to assert your rights, they may be sued by you first or countersued. Then the only ''arrangement'' to be made is how the offending agency will pay your damage award.

No, Bill, the security dealer calls which violate the Telemarketing Sales Rule are not ''just like'' collection calls. The trashy sales callers will try any phone with a pulse, whereas debt collection is a focused activity based on existing account data, or applications in the case of fraudulent payday loan collection. Debt collectors ''get away with'' bad practices because most people do not learn or assert their rights. Below I've linked to the federal laws collectors must obey, and from there you can take your grievances to more appropriate discussion threads.

ftc.gov

You don't need a valid debt or a derogatory trade line on your credit reports to be hassled by debt collectors. They call third parties to alleged debtors all the time for permitted skip tracing purposes, or often pretending it's a trace to annoy and shame an intended target whose location is already known. Under federal law the default calling hours for debt collectors begin each day, every day, at 08:00 in your time zone.

To a ''not me'' case I always recommend putting the agency on notice, just as you would if you were the target and the debt claim was invalid. Send a "cease-communication" notice via USPS Certified with return card. This is the method promoted by the FTC and many consumer watchdogs, and the only way to set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their risk of a lawsuit from you. You may already be due some payback if you can prove you've endured abusive or misleading treatment in an effort to collect debt.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

You and maybe a few million others have heard a call like this. Let me guess, it was ''Good luck as the situation unfolds'', and terrible things will happen if you don't pay some stranger on the phone for a payday loan you never heard of.

This may be the usual dirty debt collector within the U.S. or a fake collector from overseas. Either way their empty threats of arrest, imprisonment, lawsuit filing, and/or asset seizure violate federal and state laws. Try to get a business name and share it with the readers. By federal law this name cannot be withheld.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

On 800Notes in the ''Debt Collection Calls'' forum is a thread titled ''Fake payday loan collection scams - Please list new numbers here [2]''. My notes and advice on the payday loan collection thugs, updated Oct 2011, can be seen on the lead page. Also on that site you'll find comments from a major network news producer gathering material for an investigative report, with a special lookout for clean audio recordings of the South Asian thugs.

Aggrivated: Please cite the state or federal statute which makes every category of nonpersonal phone call illegal within the twelve hours you've noted. Should you have difficulty, please be advised that both the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act allow a daily 13 hour call window beginning at 08:00 in your time zone. Only your state law or a notice to your caller revoking call permission might overcome this. The two acts apply respectively to debt collectors and telemarketers. Fundraising and political calls have no imposed calling hours, but those call centers tend to observe the limits stated in FDCPA and TCPA.

When you're finished with legal research, please point us to the dictionary in which the word ''aggravate'' has the letter 'i'. If someone after five months of reports would finally try to identify the caller, then we might actually work toward solutions.

further reading:

Fair Debt Collection Practices Act
ftc.gov

Telemarketing Sales Rule
business.ftc.gov

Annoyed: I'm counting upwards of seven FDCPA violations in your story. Most obvious are the empty threats of litigation and wage garnishment. You just got through revoking permission to call the workplace, and right away the deal-closer rep is threatening to keep calling there. (I think you'd meant ''call Personnel''.) Note the conflicting payment deadlines, which is deceptive practice. Based on other reports about this agency, it is likely the rep lied about sending you a dunning letter. From here you must stop using any words which sound like ''How do I pay''. When your rights are violated you do not reward the offender with your money.

I have to caution that if you threw away any unopened mail in the recent past, one of the items could have been the FCSI dunning letter, and you may have missed your 30-day chance to properly demand validation. If this happened, it's not a bad idea to send a dispute letter anyway and set in print whatever phone restrictions you like. If this call to the PoE was your first contact after all, FCSI must get your letter in the mail next week or create another legal violation. Send all notices via USPS Certified with return card.

Meanwhile document everything said and keep phone recordings safe if you have any. If the calls continue, your task is to only extract information and not give any. If calls to the workplace continue, that is more illegal activity you may use against the agency. Lawbreaking debt collectors absolutely love to torture people at the workplace to create false shame and hope to get pressure applied. The PoE calls also send a tacit message that ''we know you have money for us since you have a job''.

Impatient managers must be made to understand a few things and not punish their staff for some intruder's hostile collection activity:
- Usually the agency knows perfectly well how to reach the targeted person at home but chooses not to, under a pretense of skip tracing, which is illegal.
- These are not ''personal'' calls in the sense that employees invite or control them.
- Anyone at the workplace can tell the collection reps to stop calling there for whatever employee and/or indicate that such calls are ''inconvenient'' or not permitted. By law, the agency must stop.

If you want a lawyer to help with your FDCPA case, shop carefully. Many so-called consumer defender firms are mere paper mills where not one partner has ever seriously fought a collector in court and the only two responses they know are ''Settle for half price'' and ''File bankruptcy''. It may take review of completed cases and lots of asking around to find the right tiger. The good news is with a juicy case like yours, you should have no trouble getting started on contingency. The FDCPA provides fee shifting to the loser. Typically the winning plaintiff spilts the award so you get the statutory award and the lawyer gets her time paid.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

..... READ ..... BEFORE ..... YOU ..... POST .....

Same scam, different version from those reported here prior. This crap has been going on for months. Early on the front name was ''ESA Research''. Now the given business name is ''Political Opinions of America''.

For those just tuning in, these junk calls disobey the Telemarketing Sales Rule since the callers don't bother to scrub for DNC registrants. The FTC says: ''Callers purporting to take a survey, but also offering to sell goods or services, must comply with the Do Not Call provisions.''

business.ftc.gov

I did keypress to ''decline'' the survey, which I realize won't stop the calls and may encourage others. I have other plans for this poser. My transcript follows, delivered by a melodic male voice in ''FM radio'' mode:

''Hello! This is John from Political Opinions of America. You have been carefully selected to participate in a short thirty second research survey, and for participating, you will receive a free two-day cruise for two people to the Bahamas, courtesy of one of our supporters. Gratuities and a small port tax will apply. To begin the survey, please press 'one' *now*. To decline the survey *and* be removed from our list, press 'nine'. Thank you!'' [silence 02.5 seconds] ''Hello! This is John .... '' [entire message repeats]

[02s 25f passed in silence, I hit '9'] ''Thank you for your time. Your phone number will be permanently removed from our list.'' [silence 01 second, caller disconnected]

phrase parsing:
- ''carefully selected to participate'' = carelessly spammed with others in a block of phone numbers
- free Bahamas cruise: That's an excessive payment for half a minute of labor, not to mention highly presumptive. A week in a floating hotel is just not a good time for everyone.
- ''Gratuities ... small port tax'' = Hand over your credit card numbers and your better judgment.
- ''one of our supporters'' = a whole gang of affiliate marketers eager to harvest your phone number
- ''removed from our list'': They don't have a list to start with. They are building one for lead generation through these deceptive calls.

Is this another stupid fake reverse directory spam which fools no one? "A-1 Steel Fence in Whittier" threw away good money on this apology for "internet marketing".

The FTC has been warning against Jamaican phone scammers for almost three years.

FTC Urges Consumers to Report Jamaica-based Telemarketing Scams
ftc.gov

A JOLT from the Blue: Jamaican Fraudsters Using Telemarketing to Target U.S. Consumers
ftc.gov

Hjmble, a debt collector wants to take your money, not your precious angel-kissed firearms. They may only suggest you sell the latter to get them the former. What slays me about these NRA threads is how often a comment like yours surfaces, which leaps into a state of defensive paranoia about one set of rights while ignoring the routine denial of other state and federal rights.

For an example of the latter I need only point to the comment right behind yours, which you could not have missed on arrival. Kelly said, ''the people doing this are clearly idiots.'' Less clearly to most, they are seriously violating laws with their extortionist collection tactics and now owe this couple a fat damage award if Kelly wants to put her law degree to work. They think spoofing the phone numbers used by a group with the same acronym is real cute, too. National Recovery Agency is essentially wearing a mask and mugging people without one of your guns.

Just to be clear for the readers at home, debt issues in America are considered civil and not criminal matters. The plain language of the FDCPA forbids any insinuation that an alleged debtor is guilty of crime or subject to arrest. There is an entire class of debt collector -- found from Corona, California to Buffalo, New York -- which counts on you not knowing this or any other industry rules. Knowledge is your first line of defense against these collection parasites. The link below will get you started.

ftc.gov

Reliant is this week's poster child for collections abuses thanks to an ABC News piece on legendary litigator Diana Mey.

complaintwire.org
abcnews.go.com
abcnews.go.com

That was me talking about Registered Agents, Cate. If my working definition from two months ago did not suffice, below is a wiki link for more detail.
en.wikipedia.org

Next is a pretty good directory where you can plug in business names. You can also find your RA by searching state registration and licensing records for companies which do business in your state ... assuming such records are required by law and the company in question has complied.
registeredagentinfo.com

Back on the topic of PRA, here's what I should have thought to ask weeks ago: Do all of the more recent calls concern the account with the 1099C? If PRA is skip tracing or working some other account, I'm not sure any prior restraints on calling you would apply.

Against the ''least sophisticated consumer'' standard adopted by the FTC, issuing a 1099C and using the phrase ''cease collection'' should mean no further collection activity on that account. One possible back door would be to claim a loss on only part of that account balance, which I only considered as a parallel to a common dirty practice of debt buyers selling off a so-called ''forgiven'' portion of debt. This all drifts into tax law territory where I would not safely comment.

DID THIS WEBSITE RECEIVE A SPAM FROM LE C. HOOK?

This fool in fact spammed this site and 800Notes at least three dozen times in the same period. More notes linked below:
(6302561990) whocalled.us
(8006515458) whocalled.us

The call may not originate in Oregon. Pacific Northwest numbers have been used for months for different flavors of junk callers and scammers who may be dialing from anywhere on Earth.

The DNC registry is referenced by callers obeying the Telemarketing Sales Rule. Political speech and fundraising does not meet the FTC definition of a sales call. We might argue that an *idea* is being sold, but you need a commercial transaction for TSR coverage. It would also be dangerous to begin trading inconvenience with the erosion of First Amendment rights.

Annoyed / Idiots / Will Sue: Raging and fuming here like three call recipients before you will not end the calls. READ .. before .. you .. post!

Plaza Associates was bought by hateful debt buyer United Recovery Systems and renamed Plaza Recovery by the start of 2012. Neither are to be trusted by any name.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

Anyone at the workplace can revoke permission for the collector to call you there. You can limit or halt all calls to any place in writing, assuming your pursuer is domestic. Using a job as ''collateral'' is just the sort of ignorant remark I might expect from a fake payday loan collector in South Asia.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

I wish I had ten dollars for each time ''due diligence on the internet'' gets a commentor no further than what is already available in the NANPA reference on every thread page of this site. The security system sales callers, among other scammers, have been using Pacific Northwest phone numbers for months now. The calls do not by necessity originate there, and it is not likely that most if any do.

This category of junk call has finally been attracting media attention, and has been closely followed by one fellow at wit's end who is working to expose the larger tangled story.

stoptomwithhomeprotection.wordpress.com

A thread on 800Notes begun by the same man also has some background. It's titled ''STOP Tom with Home Protection'' under the Telemarketing Calls section.

CHMA is said to be a DBA of Direct Resource Capital in Encinitas, CA. DRC is known for cruel illegal threats, and could possibly be in the infamous 'Corona Cabal' of lawbreaking collection agencies. Here's part of that iceberg from October .....

At FTC's Request, Court Orders Debt Collection Operation to Stop Deceiving and Abusing Consumers
ftc.gov

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

The DNC registry is for telemarketers, meaning sales, meaning all debt collectors are exempt. The following URL links to the FTC FAQ page which the DNC site *twice* coaxed you to read before you registered your numbers. See items 28 through 32.
ftc.gov

As cited here two years ago, the FDCPA offers primary protection from collection agency abuse. Learn how to exercise your rights at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

Requests for SSN are a common means of identifying an alleged debtor, without which no discussion of debt can legally proceed. Other identifiers often will get you around this when reps are pressed, such as a street address, which gives away nothing the collector cannot find. Of course, your compliance on the phone is not required. The agency's compliance with various laws IS required.

Given that hostile agencies like FNCB tend to attract employees with criminal records, extra caution cannot hurt. ID theft crimes on the side are possible, but there is frankly more fast money to be made with less risk simply by shaking down alleged debtors who don't know they have rights. You don't have to be one of those victims.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

The triple-B is your answer, David? That private payola firm which gave terrorist gang Hamas an ''A'' rating and is extorting from good businesses with unfair reviews?

Requests for SSN are a common means of identifying an alleged debtor, without which no discussion of debt can legally proceed. Other identifiers often will get you around this when reps are pressed, such as a street address, which gives away nothing the collector cannot find. Of course, your compliance on the phone is not required. The agency's compliance with various laws IS required.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

Dr. K, your caller does not maintain this site or this web page. Your caller is not going to dutifully study random forum complaints and cannot magically determine which numbers should not be called based on anonymous comments. You cannot sue your caller based on demands you made in an open forum.

To a ''not me'' case I always recommend putting the agency on notice, just as you would if you were the target and the debt claim was invalid. Send a ''cease-communication'' notice via USPS Certified with return card. This is the method promoted by the FTC and many consumer watchdogs, and the only way to set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their risk of a lawsuit from you. You may already be due some payback if you can prove you've endured abusive or misleading treatment in an effort to collect debt.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

800Notes reports claim this is Firstsource Financial Solutions, previously known as Firstsource Healthcare Advantage. The Firstsource collector family is run by an Indian firm which is not to be trusted.

To a ''not me'' case I always recommend putting the agency on notice, just as you would if you were the target and the debt claim was invalid. Send a ''cease-communication'' notice via USPS Certified with return card. This is the method promoted by the FTC and many consumer watchdogs, and the only way to set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their risk of a lawsuit from you. You may already be due some payback if you can prove you've endured abusive or misleading treatment in an effort to collect debt.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

Recent comments on 800Notes peg this as Regional Adjustment Bureau, another chronic lawbreaker with pushy reps. They appear to be working a student loan portfolio.

I don't know how you're approaching phone directory changes, but I've found them relatively quick and painless through SwitchBorad and Verizon SuperPages, which uses a WhitePages engine last I saw. All the directories tend to use the same database, so if you seed one or two they'll all be updated shortly.

Bob, since you have suspicions about this debt collector, confirmed on a couple other forums I can think of, blocking all its calls could deprive you of chances to observe violations of federal and state laws. Getting the dirt on this agency can turn into cabbage for you, capische?

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

I would not doubt John's comments on AACC from a year ago, but we should be clear that Asset Acceptance and Asset Management Professionals are not the same entity. Below are WCU threads for AACC which have been active this month.

whocalled.us
whocalled.us

TBragg, now that you've practiced your no-call request here, deliver it to the actual caller, which does not maintain this site or this web page.

TeleFund is a commercial fundraiser, one of many hired call centers expected to honor an internal no-call list and add any number upon request. Break that order, the FTC declares, and ''the telemarketer may be subject to a fine of up to $16,000.'' They are also covered to a point by other regulations for telepests, so you can kvetch about abandoned calls, bot calls to mobile phones, and so on.

Returning to topic at last, here are the fun facts to know and tell of NCO's long history of major civil penalties. On the regulatory scoreboard it has thus far cheesed off the federal government and 42 percent of the States.

In May 2004 the FTC fined these scofflaws $1.5 mil for falsifying reports to the credit bureaus, violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act. This remains the record holder for a civil penalty over FCRA, and as of first quarter 2012 the fifth highest FTC penalty overall against a debt collector.

NCO Group to Pay Largest FCRA Civil Penalty to Date [press release]
ftc.gov


NCO Financial has since been in trouble with and fined by state regulators in Pennsylvania and Texas, January 2006 and December 2008 respectively. In February 2012 NCO was penalized over a half mil by a consortium of nineteen other states.

Attorney General Corbett announces settlement agreement with PA based debt collector NCO Financial Systems
attorneygeneral.gov

NCO Group Announces Settlement with Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
budhibbs.com

Dallas County District Court order
oag.state.tx.us

NCO Financial Systems, Inc’s Settlement with the State of Texas
deanmalone.com

NCO Announces Settlement With Several States
bizjournals.com

Wayne, I don't consider extended discussion under each phone number thread to violate anything, not least of which is the lack of any Terms of Service. A lot is fair game so long as the subtopics stay within a reasonable boundary. This is understood well on 800Notes, which also did the smart thing of demarcating a forum section away from the number threads for wider topics.

Questions of caller identity lead naturally and often to questions of strategy for controlling or defeating call sources. The very nature of mystery calls can make it difficult if not impossible to know what legal or illegal category each call belongs to, such as those which only send ''unknown name'' for a CNAM and avoid leaving messages. Call recipients may therefore never think to seek help from dedicated forums. A few words on a site like this may make the only chance to catch bewildered call recipients and tip them off to the fact that they may have options to use and rights to defend.

All said, even I try to avoid ''one stop shopping'' here and frequently link to FTC resources and other more focused sites. Personally I think Credit InfoCenter and DebtorBoards have done the best job for debt collector discussion, with Debt Consolidation Care and the poorly designed Hibbs sites trailing by a few laps. Occasionally I also point to NACA, with the caveats that most collection call aggravation does not need a lawyer's rescue and that NACA is essentially a marketing vehicle heavily populated with bankruptcy mill lawyers who have no chops for working FDCPA cases.

Is this another fake reverse directory spam almost two hours past the prior one? Someone at "Carolina Cleaning Systems in Chapel Hill" needs to examine who to trust with its internet marketing.

Is this Spammer Dan back a two month hiatus? ''West Coast Tattoo Parlor in Las Vegas'' should demand a refund for this lame SEO trick.

You won't be complaining to ''Verison'' because it doesn't exist. There is a Verizon, however. The other word you wanted was ''subsidiary''. Hopefully you understand the NANPA reference above only gives you the carrier which delivered your call. That carrier does not place these scam calls and may have difficulty in controlling them since they may be coming from anywhere on earth from scammers adept at spoofing numbers.

Neo, I'm itching to know how you overseas spammers think your false comments made "at all times" are fooling anyone.

Wayne: There can be only one legal entity named ''NCO Financial''. It doesn't matter if it has more branch offices than a coffee shop franchise. You send one ''shut up'' letter USPS CMRR to its current home and that ends the call campaign, regarding whatever account it's working on, if it wants to stay out of trouble. As a ''not me'' case you are perfectly safe in doing so. I don't know how you ''agreed to go to court'', but that has no bearing on revoking a collector's permission to call.

The FDCPA does not blanket the non-debtor but it does say ''any person'' cannot be abused or misled by a collector. If you have an agency locked under a full cease-comm and you don't get compliance, the agency's conduct may rise to the level of annoyance, harassment, oppression, or abuse defined by statute, giving you a cause of action. Spoofing a number local to you where there is no NCO call center could be viewed as a deceptive practice, therefore also violating FDCPA. Some people with mobile phones have counted TCPA violations as well, though that can be a tougher play since TCPA was written for sales callers.

As you were getting skip trace calls, and there was no certainty as to who might answer, NCO was not required to reveal a business name unless you asked for one from a live rep. The secrecy you'd observed is required of them, like I tried to tell you last month. Collection agencies have walked a tightrope between mandated disclosure and privacy ever since a landmark case fought by NCO itself six years ago against Mr. Paul Foti. The goofy style of phone message you've described has been colloquially known as a ''Foti message'' ever since. Collectors whine that they must break one law to satisfy another, but they might avoid the mess altogether by simply not recording messages, and many agencies won't as a matter of self-protecting policy.

I am well aware of NCO's rap sheet of FDCPA cases, the FTC penalty for FCRA violations from May 2004, and the fines charged by regulators in Pennsylvania and Texas since then. My remarks support your right to seek damages in any court that will have you. I am only advising a measure of savvy due to bias against alleged debtors in far too many local courts. Generally the higher the court, the less chance you'll have to suffer judges who get a boner under their robes each time a perceived ''deadbeat'' loses a case. Some litigants insist on taking federal violations only to a federal court, partly for that reason of professionally neutral conduct. Your district milage may vary.

Speaking of disclosure, you might at some point decide if your forum handle is to be Tommy, Tom, Wayne, or frank with a small ''f''.

Nebraska is host to many telemarketers, and it's not unusual for large companies to farm out certain communications to a call center. It does get silly when fast food drive-through orders in Omaha are taken by people several time zones away in South Asia.

Nebraska rep Lee Terry spearheaded the Mobile Informational Call Act bill which exploded on the launch pad after a great storm of protest. Its goal was to free up innocent calls to mobile devices, such as these pharmacy notifications, from creating violations of the TCPA. However, the potential for abuse by sneaky sales callers and debt collectors was too great to let the bill pass.

Arbor Concepts: Spamming your discussion forum in the present!

It's actually the Federal Trade Commission which has primary jurisdiction. Filing reports to any desk won't end the collector's calls. You must confront your tormentor directly and on Certified Mailed paper if you want sure results.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

Helpful: Knowing that SoL has run is only part of the story. Your moldy account can be collected until Doomsday or your death, whichever comes first. The only difference between now and 2006 is that PRA can't get a judge to help collect. If you're sued over this, you would raise SoL as a killer defense. Any threat to sue you would violate the FDCPA, which is the controlling law for debt collectors.

Next, as you've found belatedly, the Telemarketing Sales Rule does not apply here, as the ''marketing'' part of the term should imply. This also makes Do-Not-Call complaints from you and Sam invalid. The following URL links to the FTC FAQ page which the DNC site *twice* coaxed you to read before you registered your numbers. See items 28 through 32.
ftc.gov

As for revoking all permission to contact you, the FDCPA specifies that you do so in print, just as your rep told you. Send your cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. Verbal demands cannot be proven, thus are not much obeyed by chronic lawbreakers like this agency.


Bubba, I would more accurately say the PRA rep was leaning on your sense of shame. The word ''deadbeat'' was implied even if never spoken. This is a very common industry tactic, frequently leading to legal violations you can use as ammo against the agency in court. Possibly your PRA rep has already ignored your rights, if you study what was said closely.

Watcher, I don't mind being quoted but some attribution would be the polite thing to do.
(9018819984) whocalled.us

You might next time simply link to that thread, as I did when replying to you in another AICR thread yesterday.

Possibly you were pranked and the number was spoofed. There is an entire subculture of such prank callers delivering prerecorded audio samples through "soundboard" software.

BJ, scam callers do not know of or care about your DNC registration. Don't be shy with those complaints to the FTC and attorneys general. They need that input in mass amounts to start civil actions against scofflaws.

It's too true, unless you set restrictions from the first day, your kindness to one charity will be rewarded with the seeding of your contact data to many others who will come running with their palms up and tin cans shaking. Non-sales callers are exempt from scrubbing federal DNC in any case, so they don't need your consent to call, indirect or otherwise.

You may find the calls are placed by a commercial fundraiser, such as Associated Community Services, Dial America, Donor Services Group, Harris, InfoCision, MDS, and TeleFund. As commercial entities, these hired call centers are expected to honor an internal no-call list and add any number upon request. Break that order, the FTC declares, and ''the telemarketer may be subject to a fine of up to $16,000.'' They are also covered to a point by other regulations for telepests, so you can kvetch about abandoned calls, bot calls to mobile phones, and so on.

Linked below find the simple steps I took to rid myself of a major pain boiler room by politely rubbing its face in federal laws. You will note that I never rely on verbal cease-communication demands.
(9018819984) whocalled.us

Could you share the business name of this potty mouth? I'll make a guess it's a debt collector from the practice of hassling a workplace. If so, that business is breaking federal and state laws.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

CCI is an acronym used by Central Credit Services, which is a debt collector as I'd guessed here in July 2010. Agencies are under increasing scrutiny for their fake threats of process service and police action much as described by Shannon.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

''Management'' is by law supposed to maintain an internal no-call list if the caller is trying to sell something or is a commercial fundraiser. The ''very nice lady'' would seem to be trying to fog the issue.

Right away, Carol. We can stop calling you immediately since we can determine your full name and your phone number from an anonymous comment on a mystery caller site that we do not manage or bother to read.

Please see the response in the thread linked below for further instruction.
(2402107112) whocalled.us

Ms. Valles, did you not notice a single word written here before you posted? You have to deliver your demands to THE SOURCE OF YOUR CALLS which IS NOT THE ADMIN OF THIS WEBSITE! No person at Receivables Performance Management controls this page and probably no one there reads it either.

The proper and best way to get your demands met AND the above facts have already been discussed in this thread. There is absolutely no point in maintaining a discussion forum when none of you RPM call recipients have the patience to read it.

Timbo, maybe if you actually read those rules which you feel are so unfair, you would realize they give you options.
ftc.gov

The dirty secret is that many charity calls are placed by a commercial fundraiser, such as Associated Community Services, Dial America, Donor Services Group, Harris, InfoCision, MDS, and TeleFund. These non-sales calls are exempt from federal DNC, even though such call centers are very much for-profit and pocket most of what their periodic campaigns collect. At times the ''charity'' client is itself a closet profit enterprise, compounding the deception.

However, as commercial entities, these hired call centers are expected to honor an internal no-call list and add any number upon request. Break that order, the FTC declares, and ''the telemarketer may be subject to a fine of up to $16,000.'' They are also covered to a point by other regulations for telepests, so you can kvetch about abandoned calls, bot calls to mobile phones, and so on.

Linked below find the simple steps I took to rid myself of a major pain boiler room by politely rubbing its face in federal laws.
(9018819984) whocalled.us

Your local police train for criminal matters, and debt collection is a civil problem. Kitty, you could try taking your problem straight to Van Ru's doorstep. To a ''not me'' case I always recommend putting the agency on notice, just as you would if you were the target and the debt claim was invalid. Send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

By the way, here's a May 2010 report from the Phoenix New Times which may set your mind at unease about the trust you're placing in LifeLock:

Cracking LifeLock: Even After a $12 Million Penalty for Deceptive Advertising, the Tempe Company Can't Be Honest About Its Identity-Theft-Protection Service
phoenixnewtimes.com

Watcher, in less time than it is taking you to catalog the calling patterns you could draft and send a ''shut up'' letter to whichever commercial fundraiser is running the call campaign. There is a fair chance the pride of Akron, telemarketing gorilla InfoCision, is calling your area. Linked below is the story of how I either rid myself of these pests forever or will be made a thousand-aire by their next calls.

(9018819984) whocalled.us

Daniel, you will never, ever get a high volume debt collector to obey verbal demands. To a ''not me'' case I always recommend putting the agency on notice, just as you would if you were the target and the debt claim was invalid. Send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at risk of a lawsuit from you.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

The scammer does not care about your DNC registration and will continue to call until compelled to stop through legal measures. This crap of a fake survey masking travel sales must have at least fifty phone numbers related to the scam. Many are likely spoofed and the sources of these calls may not even be domestic.

More than likely there is no ''process server'', mainly since those people don't give verbal warnings. This may be the usual dirty debt collector within the U.S. or a fake collector from overseas. Either way their empty threats of arrest, imprisonment, lawsuit filing, and/or asset seizure violate federal and state laws. Try to get a business name and share it with the readers. By federal law this name cannot be withheld.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

On 800Notes in the ''Debt Collection Calls'' forum is a thread titled ''Fake payday loan collection scams - Please list new numbers here [2]''. My notes and advice on the payday loan collection thugs, updated Oct 2011, can be seen on the lead page. Also on that site you'll find comments from a major network news producer gathering material for an investigative report, with a special lookout for clean audio recordings of the South Asian thugs.

The spammers are talking to themselves again .....

whocalled.us

The spammers are talking to themselves again .....

The lack of disclosure and the ''important matter in my office'' stuff are indicators of debt collection. Seems I've already commented on this ''Debt Recovery Solutions'' bunch a few weeks ago.

whocalled.us

Flo, did you send your cease-comm notice by USPS Certified with return card? It's critical that you can prove your orders were received before complaining to a judge that they were ignored.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

Try hovering your cursor over the term "NANPA" above. You might also have plugged the term into a search engine. If you can find your way to this site you can find answers to dead simple questions.

Legitimate Comments Would Not Be Repeated Month After Month In A Spam-Like Fashion. The Only Response Alex Copeland Makes To Every Kind Of Call In This Asinine Capitalized Text Style Is To ''Always Answer''. If Call Centers Were That Concerned About Their Telco Bills They Would Not Consider The Phone An Ideal Instrument To Get Them Paid More.

Debt collectors like iQor AKA Allied Interstate especially are not going to stop calling until they are ordered to, best accomplished in print and sent via USPS Certified with return card. Given what they stand to collect from junk debts acquired for maybe 05% of face value, the recovery rate from their lawsuits, and the negligible cost of VOIP service, Copeland's assertion is like saying that extracting one bucket of water will keep you from drowning in a lake.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

More notes on Copeland's dubious advice are found here from August 2011:
whocalled.us

J, it's unlikely your verbal demands will be obeyed. Third parties to the alleged debtor like yourself don't get a lot of coverage by FDCPA, but it does say ''any person'' cannot be abused or misled by a collector. Not telling you more than ''business matter'' does not count as being deceptive, and is in fact a very common (and perhaps devious) industry practice which creates urgency and fear without causing a privacy violation.

To a ''not me'' case I always recommend putting the agency on notice, just as you would if you were the target and the debt claim was invalid. Send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at risk of a lawsuit from you.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

Well, Meeeeee, you gave us precious little detail to work with. My suggestions to you are found within my prior comment, the one which was staring you in the face when you added yours.

Holly, junky callers do not need to "get" or "have" or "find" your phone numbers. They simply target entire blocks of numbers at a time and blast away like email spammers until someone bites at their lures. You can change your number nine times over and never truly escape.

Faye, callers do not maintain this site or this web page. Your caller is not going to dutifully study random forum complaints and cannot magically determine which numbers should not be called based on anonymous comments. A trashy caller which is violating federal law is not going to listen to your pleas in any case, unless you manage to find an address to be served with a summons.

Ms. Gray, you don't need a valid debt or a derogatory trade line on your credit reports to be hassled by debt collectors. They call third parties to alleged debtors all the time for permitted skip tracing purposes, or often pretending it's a trace to annoy and shame an intended target whose location is already known. Runaway skip tracing is arguably the most common problem the debt industry creates.

You and Mr, Corrigan and many others need to follow my advice from nine months ago. Stop relying on verbal demands, get on a paper trail, and send everything USPS CMRR. For the record, Corrigan would have a case no decent consumer lawyer would touch. One, the FTC has primary jurisdiction, not the FCC. Two, he's relying on the collector's audio recording to prove his statements? Good luck extracting those suddenly ''lost files'' in discovery. Three, the annoyance calls he proposes makes him no better than his tormentor, and there is every chance he will find the judge sees the *debt collector* as the one being persecuted for ''just doing its job''.

Junky callers do not need to "get" or "have" or "find" your phone numbers. They simply target entire blocks of numbers at a time and blast away like email spammers until someone bites at their lures.

Generally the most you can do with credit reprice scammers is file complaints with the FTC and attorneys general. Based on a mass of complaints, several such firms were killed by the FTC in 2010 and 2011 one more got hit some weeks ago. They breed like cockroaches and drive people daily to fill these forums with comments. A legit business will take a ''no-call'' demand seriously, but these schemers aren't interested in laws and may be calling from outside the U.S. and spoofing numbers.

If by a long shot you can nail down a physical U.S. address for your caller(s) or its HQ, then you can consider a lawsuit under TCPA and/or UCC and any relevant business regulations. Many appear to operate in phone scam capital Florida, and lately a flood of calls is coming through the Pacific Northwest, reportedly using entire ranges of defunct phone numbers.

Hover your pointer over the acronym ''NANPA'' above.

Any chance this is the same caller as the other one you reported today? (2135504612) whocalled.us

You may not be the alleged debtor, but no person is to be subjected to abuse or harassment or deceptive practices and get away with it, per the FDCPA. Document all calls and Caller ID carefully and record clean phone audio if possible. You may be able to build a case which could make this agency ''disappear forever'' from your life with its apologies wrapped in cash.

Mike, NCO is like every other high volume collection agency with a history of lawbreaking. They assume you are just another liar who is harboring the mystery person like a fugitive. They will never, ever accept your story while you persist in relying on verbal demands to stop calling.

To a ''not me'' case I always recommend putting the agency on notice, just as you would if you were the target and the debt claim was invalid. Send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril.

Everyone else can learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

PirateGirl, your caller does not maintain this site or this web page. Your caller is not going to dutifully study random forum complaints and cannot magically determine which numbers should not be called based on anonymous comments, here or in the nextdoor thread. (2402107111) whocalled.us

The initial advice you need is found in my 20 March remarks, a mere three comments behind yours. Lawbreaking debt collectors absolutely love to torture people at the workplace to create false shame and hope to get pressure applied. The PoE calls also send a tacit message that ''we know you have money for us since you have a job''.

Impatient managers must be made to understand a few things and not punish their staff for some intruder's hostile collection activity:
- Usually the agency knows perfectly well how to reach the targeted person at home but chooses not to, under a pretense of skip tracing, which is illegal.
- These are not ''personal'' calls in the sense that employees invite or control them.
- Anyone at the workplace can tell the collection reps to stop calling there for whatever employee and/or indicate that such calls are ''inconvenient'' or not permitted. By law, the agency must stop. (Some will refuse to cease, and must be clamped under a Cert-Mailed demand.)

The alleged debtor has broader power to restrict or ban all calls to all places, as discussed in my prior comment here.

Is this about the hundredth time some discount SEO spammer has treated this site like a reverse directory? "Texas Roofing & Remodeling Services" got a raw deal from this fool.

Gosh, Tori, there is absolutely no clue in this thread, apart perhaps from the same business name cited at least 93 times over five years.

The federal DNC registry does plenty of good, within its scope. The following URL links to the FTC FAQ page which the DNC site *twice* coaxed you to read before you registered your numbers. See items 28 through 32.
ftc.gov

Turn to the FDCPA for relief from collector abuse and to exercise your rights as an alleged debtor. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

It's both a severe bullying tactic and illegal. Debt is a civil matter in America, not criminal, even if it concerns some dubious ''hot check'' claim from a payday loan collector.

This may be the usual dirty debt collector within the U.S. or a fake collector from overseas. Either way their empty threats of arrest, imprisonment, lawsuit filing, and/or asset seizure violate federal and state laws. Try to get a business name and share it with the readers. By federal law this name cannot be withheld.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

On 800Notes in the ''Debt Collection Calls'' forum is a thread titled ''Fake payday loan collection scams - Please list new numbers here [2]''. My notes and advice on the payday loan collection thugs, updated Oct 2011, can be seen on the lead page. Also on that site you'll find comments from a major network news producer gathering material for an investigative report, with a special lookout for clean audio recordings of the South Asian thugs.

BibleMan, you will be sorry you got mixed up with ''quad-F''. The more innocuous ''Kids First'' front end merely veils the very active censorship FFFF commits, and you will be driven bonkers from their marketing campaigns. The feds sued this firm with two sister companies in May 2011 for consumer abuse and trying to end-run the Telemarketing Sales Rule. My comments from that period are linked below.

(6128085568) whocalled.us

Now that you've practiced your no-call request here, deliver it to the actual caller, which does not maintain this site or this web page. How you handle this depends on the type of caller and what's been said, which for the readers would have been very useful information to share. That is the function of a mystery caller site.

Hello, I "wants" to know how stupid you spammers think we are.

Daniel: You can start by reading about the federal laws I have promoted in this thread since the end of 2010. You should also have a cause of action to bring suit for a harassing call pattern.

ftc.gov

MeToo, the only waste was your time in complaining before you had the facts, and possibly your reading comprehension. As non-sales callers, all debt collectors are exempt from filtering out any numbers registered on a no-call list. The FTC never kept this a secret, and practically begged you to read the linked FAQ at registration time.

ftc.gov

The FTC has primary jurisdiction over debt collectors and it does bring civil actions against the worst actors, though we may argue it's not often enough. When your rights are denied and you have laws with private right of action to help you, there is little excuse to sit and grouse while waiting for a rescue which may never come.

Assuming this is one of PRA's many dozens of numbers, when do you plan on revoking their permission to call you? Do that on paper and send via USPS Certified with return card and you can make their subsequent calls very costly to them.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

I'm sure you can answer your own question since the owners of "Alpine Pest Management in Bend, OR" think they got a great deal on SEO, but got you and your stupid fake reverse directory spam instead.

Pest control has been a theme for this spammer for a week ....
in South Carolina - whocalled.us
and in Connecticut - whocalled.us

At a wild guess, it's to record your "yes" answer and apply that affirmative to some agreement you've never before seen or heard. Then perhaps begins the badgering for your payment for the service or item you never got.

I'm sure you can answer your own question since the owners of "Pest Arrest in Greer, SC" think they got a great deal on SEO, but got you and your stupid fake reverse directory spam instead.

I'm sure you can answer your own question since the owners of "Schultz Pest & Wildlife Solutions" in Brookfield think he got a great deal on SEO, but got you and your stupid fake reverse directory spam instead.

Sally, the DNC registry is for telemarketers, meaning sales, meaning all debt collectors are exempt. This fact was not kept secret from you when you registered your numbers.

I can hardly believe CI is still using this obviously bogus phone number. If Creditors Interchange or any other agency thinks you owe something, be sure to respond on real paper to its federally required dunning letter with a dispute and validation request, adding that you either restrict or revoke consent to call again. Given the industry's documented need to break laws to get at your assets, you should dispute even if you agree slightly with its claim.

If the account is not legally collectable, or it's simply not you they want, you're free to send a full cease-comm, cutting off all contact. Send all notices via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft them. Pay close attention to all communication and document it well. If those contacts yield legal violations, you may collect from *them* through a judge or arbitrator.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Well, it's not a false debt collector, but I'd agree with Kyle that PRA's practices have been historically misleading when not outright fraudulent. I've written about PRA on this site many times, but this thread should give everyone a pretty good start in raising proper disputes and deflecting this agency's abuses:

(9145130163) whocalled.us

If PRA or any other agency thinks you owe something, be sure to respond on real paper to its federally required dunning letter with a dispute and validation request, adding that you either restrict or revoke consent to call again. Given the industry's documented need to break laws to get at your assets, you should dispute even if you agree slightly with its claim.

If the account is not legally collectable, or it's simply not you they want, you're free to send a full cease-comm, cutting off all contact. Send all notices via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft them. Pay close attention to all communication and document it well. If those contacts yield legal violations, you may collect from *them* through a judge or arbitrator.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Bill is correct all the way. I've written about PRA on this site many times, but this thread should give everyone a pretty good start in raising proper disputes and deflecting this agency's abuses:

(9145130163) whocalled.us

If PRA or any other agency thinks you owe something, be sure to respond on real paper to its federally required dunning letter with a dispute and validation request, adding that you either restrict or revoke consent to call again. Given the industry's documented need to break laws to get at your assets, you should dispute even if you agree slightly with its claim.

If the account is not legally collectable, or it's simply not you they want, you're free to send a full cease-comm, cutting off all contact. Send all notices via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft them. Pay close attention to all communication and document it well. If those contacts yield legal violations, you may collect from *them* through a judge or arbitrator.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Wow, was this meatball paid a nickel each time he used the words ''obviously'' and ''important''? Debt collectors face a thorny problem when they decide to leave messages. If they name a person or replace the pat phrase ''personal matter'' with ''debt collection'', they potentially violate an alleged debtor's privacy since they can never know who is playing back those messages.

Of course, they all tend to create at the same time a false sense of urgency and imply that the alleged debtor is listening from his or her secret hiding place and should just come out and ''confess''. The only thing ''obviously pretty important'' is that rep's need to pin his name to a commission or some other bonus for capture of prey. You need not assist the foxhunt, or even bother to answer.

If DRS or any other agency thinks you owe something, be sure to respond on real paper to its federally required dunning letter with a dispute and validation request, adding that you either restrict or revoke consent to call again. Given the industry's documented need to break laws to get at your assets, you should dispute even if you agree slightly with its claim.

If the account is not legally collectable, or it's simply not you they want, you're free to send a full cease-comm, cutting off all contact. Send all notices via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft them. Pay close attention to all communication and document it well. If those contacts yield legal violations, you may collect from *them* through a judge or arbitrator.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Who are ''they'' who won't let you record, Texas? Your state has a single party consent law like about two-thirds of the nation. Also, no debt collector is going to spring for the six dollars to send you Cert Mail. Its lawyer might do so if you're already in litigation.

Karen, I will say it once more for you and for every other ''not me'' case. Stop beating your head against the phone waiting for unresponsive reps and make your demands on paper. A shifty collector like BCR will ignore verbal requests precisely because you cannot prove you made them.

This is the new version of the fake "Lincoln Navigator" contest which seemingly every third person and his dog won last year.

Pup, if you think you're terrified now, wait until the scammers and data harvesters get hold of that phone number you've just published in an open forum. Should you manage not to grow out of your xenophobia, moving away from a nation built and made vital by immigrants might be your only option.

The HMC Group website is full of grammatical errors and promotional bluster, like it was written by one of the call center floor managers. It declares, ''We feel that the industry has become too competitive to rest on our morals.'' Uh, yeah ... the established phrase is ''rest on our laurels'', not that the average collection agency could rest on morals, either.

They seem proud of a ''Predictive dialer capability of up to 1,000 outbound calls per hour''. From the comments here, the buckshot theory of mass dialing results in too many abandoned calls, as it does across the industry.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

} .... found this!!! After reading a few pages of comments ...

What you found was a short thread on 800Notes, where you posted the same comment a few minutes before repeating it here. Nonetheless your story describes very typical behavior from a fake payday loan collector.

This may be the usual US lawbreaker or a fake collector from South Asia. Either way their empty threats of arrest, imprisonment, lawsuit filing, and/or asset seizure violate federal and state laws. If your tormentor is domestic, it will be your turn to say ''see me in court'', and it won't be a sick joke like their threat.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

On 800Notes in the ''Debt Collection Calls'' forum is a thread titled ''Fake payday loan collection scams - Please list new numbers here [2]''. My notes and advice on the payday loan collection thugs, updated Oct 2011, can be seen on the lead page. Also on that site you'll find comments from a major network news producer gathering material for an investigative report, with a special lookout for clean audio recordings of the South Asian thugs.

I'm sure you can answer your own question since the owner of "Spots & Dots Cleaning in Bay Shore, NY" thinks he got a great deal on SEO, but got you and your stupid fake reverse directory spam instead.

Would you mind sharing what you heard in these calls? Other forums strongly indicate fake payday loan collection.

1. The spelling is ''iQor'', as noted many times in this thread.
2. iQor has been known to Americans by its subsidiary name of Allied Interstate. The AI name has lingered although officially it no longer exists.
3. Yes, it's *that* Allied Interstate, the one fined $1.75 million by the FTC in October 2010 for chronic FDCPA violation.
4. WCU has many great features but is poorly policed for spam, trolls, pranks, and cranks. That won't change until it gets more than an absentee landlord.


Debt Collector Will Pay $1.75 Million to Settle FTC Charges [press release]
ftc.gov

Eleven digits .... Are you sure you did not mean this one?
(6193069089) whocalled.us

Barking here on a mystery call forum is not going to stop the calls, either. I would agree that you have observed a calling pattern sufficient to create ''annoyance or harassment'' per the FDCPA. Document all calls and CID carefully and record clean phone audio if possible. You'll need all the ammo if you decide you want a judge to stop the noise.

For now, getting your problem on a paper trail is crucial. To a ''not me'' case I always recommend putting the agency on notice, just as you would if you were the target and the debt claim was invalid. Send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

Stop treating this website like it's a private channel to your caller, thanks.

Mary, now that you've practiced your no-call request here, deliver it to the actual caller, which does not maintain this site or this web page. It is unwise to publish a phone number you meant to protect in an open forum where any data harvester and scammer can find it.

That wife will be tickled to see you confirming her suspicions in an open forum for all to see.

I'm not sure what would be floating an ''established business relationship'' (EBR) for so long between a manufacturer and homeowner, unless you've recently ordered a spare hand crank or revived EBR by calling Andersen with a product inquiry. My Dad installed Andersen products for fifty years as an indie contractor. I ran this past him and he's baffled as to why you'd be called otherwise.

Per the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR), absent any instruction or transaction from you, call permission expires eighteen months after your final payment if you discontinue doing business. It also says you can revoke call permission anytime, whether you're still a paying customer or not.

business.ftc.gov

InfoCision, the commercial fundraising pride of Akron, was a relentless irritant for years until I put the TCPA on my side and the company on notice. I've enjoyed a much quieter phone for months. My story and company notes are linked below.

(9018819984) whocalled.us

Could you identify ''these people'' for the readers? You might get a more helpful response, as different categories of callers respond (or should respond) to different rules.

Vitelity is a VOIP provider VOIP is a popular choice for call centers which want to operate cheaply and/or easily spoof Caller ID tags.

You did a good job deflecting and frustrating this criminal fraudster. This may be the usual dirty debt collector within the U.S. or a fake collector from South Asia. Either way their empty threats of arrest, imprisonment, lawsuit filing, and/or asset seizure violate federal and state laws. Try to get a business name and share it with the readers. By federal law this name cannot be withheld. If your tormentor is domestic, it will be your turn to say "see me in court", and it won't be a sick joke like their threats.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

On 800Notes in the ''Debt Collection Calls'' forum is a thread titled ''Fake payday loan collection scams - Please list new numbers here [2]''. My notes and advice on the payday loan collection thugs, updated Oct 2011, can be seen on the lead page. Also on that site you'll find comments from a major network news producer gathering material for an investigative report, with a special lookout for clean audio recordings of the South Asian thugs.

Let me help with your amusing parsing of this fairly typical debt collector message:

''A matter of yours'', or ''personal matter'', or ''business matter'' equals debt collection, but we can't actually say that without creating a privacy violation.

The ''attempt to collect a debt '' bit is required language once the alleged debtor is known to be present. This message of course could be accusing a toddler or a housecat for all they know.

''advise me of your intentions ... before any reviews are processed'' .... Read as, ''I'm thinking of getting you sued, nudge, nudge, get the hint? I can't legally come out and say that, either''


Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

Barbara's comment from Dec 2008 is very telling. It's preceisely how skip tracers are trained to think, that everyone they call is a liar either trying to ''avoid responsibility'' or harbor a debt fugitive.

If AMP or any other agency thinks you owe something, be sure to respond on real paper to its federally required dunning letter with a dispute and validation request, adding that you either restrict or revoke consent to call again. Given the industry's documented need to break laws to get at your assets, you should dispute even if you agree slightly with its claim.

If the account is not legally collectable, or it's simply not you they want, you're free to send a full cease-comm, cutting off all contact. Send all notices via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft them. Pay close attention to all communication and document it well. If those contacts yield legal violations, you may collect from *them* through a judge or arbitrator.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Gary, is this a transcript of a inbound message you've recorded? Even before considering the western New York NANP reference, the ''pending matter'' is most likely debt collection and the ''further action'' is a faint legal threat.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

Lil, I'm glad you realize that your ex is probably not handing out decoy phone numbers which point back to you. Skip tracers will find anyone they think might be useful to create false shame and irritate the alleged debtor.

To a ''not me'' case I always recommend putting the agency on notice, just as you would if you were the target and the debt claim was invalid. Send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

You're right, it's not your job to assist any collection agency foxhunt. Tooting whistles and horns won't do much good since phone audio is attenuated. You're likely to inspire a vindictive response given that the industry is heavily populated with anger mismanagement cases.

Debt collectors are notoriously deaf to verbal requests. To a ''not me'' case I always recommend putting the agency on notice, just as you would if you were the target and the debt claim was invalid. Send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril.

You might want to take notes and record calls. ''Very rude'' collector behavior which rises to abuse or harassment is illegal and creates a cause of private action per FDCPA, meaning you can spank the offending agency in court. It is also violative to outright refuse to stop calling when asked. You need that demand on a paper trail to be taken seriously by both the agency and your local judges. It would be helpful to the readers if someone could provide a business name here, which by law the reps must disclose on demand.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

My Dad, also in southern New England like Martin, is plagued with these credit reprice scam calls. Today saw the first from this number and variant. This one diverges from the style of two popular versions heard before, one of which I call the ''stimulus schoolmarm''. This features a bored sounding female in a sing-song voice, with a faint call center background chatter. Perhaps this is trying to fool us into thinking it's a live call.

Of course, the caller did not wait for the message recorder greeting to end, typical of all these ''Rachel'' type calls. Therefore it cannot be live, and the bot lady admits as much. As before with this category of junk call, we have no rep name, no business name, and no given return number. What follows is my transcript of all we do have:

''... since you are up for review for a lower rate on your existing accounts. Press 'one' now to speak to a live representative to get started -- [beat] -- or press 'two' to discontinue further notice.''

Bob, the huge majority of comments here describe actions of a survey firm, and a fairly well known one. Very infrequent past comments talk about collections skip tracing. It's certainly possible, and would be unsurprising, for a collection agency to unlawfully spoof a legit surveyor. Whichever the case, no one who smells a rat is compelled to reply to one.

I'm accused of shilling for some unpopular industry or another about monthly. All I've done is to point out realities of the rules we live under and the limits on our ability to complain about perfectly legal caller behavior. But while you're learning the rules you can learn your rights, which will help you to sniff out genuinely illegal behavior and combat it.

This sounds like a debt collector skip tracing. You may continue to get that snotty attitude until you ''confess'' to either being who he thinks you are or to having the alleged debtor hiding in your attic. I hope someone can report a business name here. Federal law requires a debt collector to name his boss on demand; this is not considered to violate debtors' privacy.

To a ''not me'' case I always recommend putting the agency on notice, just as you would if you were the target and the debt claim was invalid. Send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

RedHot, I think it would be sufficient to simply link to the FTC page you've copied from:
ftc.gov

Your fast cut-paste job wrecks its readability besides. The original depends on layout elements like boldface headings and indented bullet points.

The company is known interchangably as Credit Management or CMI Group, and its home is Carrollton, Texas. I haven't seen them reported on WCU for a while. Now this month at least two numbers are active. Maybe they have a fresh portfolio of stale debt to badger people over.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

Judy, I'm ever so glad that I spend time here warning people away from mistakes which will harm them, just so yet more impulsive types can tromp in later and ignore that advice which is *immediately visible* on their arrival!

One more time, and that's it .... The name of this website is ''Who Called Us'', seen in large friendly letters on every page header. The domain name reflects this unambiguously. Your caller does not maintain this site or this web page. Your caller is not going to dutifully study random complaints here. A forum like this is strictly for call recipients to share their findings. THIS IS NOT a direct or private channel to the phone bank boiler rooms we comment upon.

You have very little room for complaint about unwanted phone calls when you cannot manage to pay attention to where, how, and why you are revealing personal information. Your data security begins in that couple pounds of fleshy matter you keep floating in your skull. Use it wisely and make better decisions.

Gaylin, I hope you enjoy that new rash of junky calls you'll get now that you've published your phone number -- the one you mean to protect -- in an open forum where every data harvester can plainly see it. Please look again at the page header and the site domain name. It says ''Who Called Us''. A forum like this is strictly for call recipients to share their findings. It is NOT a direct or private channel to your callers.

NOW then, when hassled by debt collectors you have simple options provided by state and federal laws. You can dispute their claims and shut down the phone calls any time, but you must inform the agency directly, and your demands are best made on real paper, sent USPS Certified with return card.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

The caller is not making it easy for you to slap down a no-call order, NC. If you make a positive ID and the collector is domestic, make your demands to stop the calls and for debt validation on paper, via USPS Certified with return card.

Under federal law, anyone at a place of employment can revoke permission to call an alleged debtor at that place. Impatient managers should be made aware that such calls are not ''personal'' or invited by targeted employees. Rogue debt collectors simply love to hassle people at PoE to create false shame and send a tacit message that ''we know you have money for us since you have a job''. Managers everywhere are advised not to punish their staff for some intruder's hostile collection activity, which in many cases involves a fraudulent claim to start with.

The federal rules for third party collectors:
ftc.gov

An illegal tactic at that. In the US at least, debt is a civil matter and not criminal. Anyone making threats of arrest over some old bill or a likely false ''hot check'' claim is a liar and breaking federal law. Ditto for posing as law enforcement or implying in any way that police will take an interest in the matter.

This may be the usual dirty debt collector within the U.S. or a fake collector from South Asia. Try to get a business name and share it with the readers. By federal law this name cannot be withheld. If the collector is domestic you can sue them yourself and your legal fees will be extracted painfully from the offender's hide.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

The following URL links to the FTC FAQ page which the DNC site *twice* begged you to read before registering your phone numbers. See items 28 through 32.
ftc.gov

If you find a hidden commercial purpose behind the calls, *then* you may have cause to complain.

You need not rely on luck to peel skip tracing collection monkeys from your back. To a ''not me'' case I always recommend putting the agency on notice, just as you would if you were the target and the debt claim was invalid. Send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril. As demonstrated by the experience of RedRidingHood, a ''verbal cease and desist'' (spelling corrected) is as worthless as the paper it's not printed on.

Hopefully you're aware by now that the DNC registry is for telemarketers, meaning sales, meaning all debt collectors are exempt. The FTC never kept this a secret, and practically begged you all to read the linked FAQ at registration time.
ftc.gov

It would appear from this thread that a magazine sales firm abandoned this number circa 2010. Other call forums report this sales activity straight through Nov 2011. RRH is the only commentor reporting Zwicker, and one report cites another debt collector, ER Solutions. Possibly these are reporting errors, or spoofs from known lawbreakers in collections. I think we'll need to wait for more comments to be sure that anything has changed.

When still known as Academy Collection Service, this agency in November 2008 was spanked for $2.25 million by the FTC for innumerable and vicious violations of debtors' rights. This remains in the top five FTC fines ever handed to a debt collector. Shortly thereafter ACS rebranded as Monarch Recovery Management. It has not taken them long to attract a new batch of Fair Debt lawsuits since then. ACS or MRM or whatever name it likes needs to be shuttered forever.

Nationwide Debt Collector Will Pay $2.25 Million to Settle FTC Charges [press release]
ftc.gov

I'm not sure anyone can fully understand you, ''Un Know''. Anyway, your caller does not maintain this site or this web page. Your caller is not going to dutifully study random forum complaints like yours. The FBI is not where you go for relief from domestic debt collectors, and you don't need a lawyer unless your rights have actually been abused.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

Ashdav: Technically calling two different phone numbers so close together in time is not a foul on its own. I've seen that happen with many other agencies, which can paint the action as ''skip tracing''. However, there should be no need to go skip tracing once you've made contact and identified yourself as the alleged debtor. I'm guessing that identification never happened, which gives them an excuse, however flimsy, to carry on annoying you.

Saying that you ''don't accept'' the calls is not the same as stopping them. Whether you owe something or not, it's best to shut them up on paper. If you're not the target, send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril.

If PBC or whoever thinks you owe something, be sure to respond within the specified thirty days to its federally required dunning letter with a dispute and validation request, again via USPS CMRR. A collection agency can't make a peep regarding the debt account until that request is satisfied. You may in the same letter state that some or all phone calls are "inconvenient". Given this industry's documented need to break laws to get at your assets, you should dispute even if you agree slightly with its claim.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

By law the debt collector need only be told once to quit hassling the workplace. Of course, laws don't bother Unipoint Holding / United Recovery Systems, known to be among the worst in the industry for illegal practices. I would suggest getting on a paper trail with your demands for call banning and/or debt validation as appropriate. Send all notices via USPS Certified with return card.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

LuckyDuck, I'm not sure but I'd guess the agency rep wanted you to self-identify in order to carry on with discussion and avoid getting her boss sued. It's rather difficult to hold down a job in your prior condition, so you have every right to dispute collection claims as they come along. Get on a paper trail and make agencies send proof ... if they can. Medical billing has to be the most dysfunctional of all categories of business billing. You should dispute as a matter of course, even if you slightly agree with the debt claim, so that your rights are preserved.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

As to cries from ''Upset Mom'', it must be noted for future commentors that your caller does not maintain this site or this web page. Your caller is not going to dutifully study random forum complaints and cannot magically determine which numbers should not be called based on anonymous comments.

High volume debt collectors are notoriously deaf to verbal requests. Third parties to the alleged debtor like Scott and NL don't get a lot of coverage by FDCPA, but it does say ''any person'' cannot be abused or misled by a collector.

To a ''not me'' case I always recommend putting the agency on notice, just as you would if you were the target and the debt claim was invalid. Send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

Debt collectors are legally barred from revealing anything beyond a business name until the alleged debtor is known to be speaking. SSN is a quick way to verify identity, but cross references can be made to other data points like an address. I wouldn't give up dates of birth, that is actually of greater value to thieves. All said, you've no obligation to answer questions or speak at all when collectors ring.

You don't need a valid debt or a derogatory trade line on your credit reports to be hassled by debt collectors. They call third parties to alleged debtors all the time for permitted skip tracing purposes, or often pretending it's a trace to annoy and shame an intended target whose location is already known.

If you're not their intended target, it's best to tell them in writing. It's called a ''cease-comm'' for short, and it is best sent USPS Certified with a return card. Under federal law they must comply with your written notice. You may already be due some payback if you can prove abusive tactics or foul words were used in an effort to collect debt. You might get some legal traction from a harassing or annoying call pattern as well.

The FDCPA is your new best friend.
ftc.gov

Debt collectors are legally barred from revealing anything beyond a business name until the alleged debtor is known to be speaking. SSN is a quick way to verify identity, but cross references can be made to other data points like an address. I wouldn't give up dates of birth, that is actually of greater value to thieves. All said, you've no obligation to answer questions or speak at all when collectors ring.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

Anon #2 from March 2012: The survey rep spoke rightly and did more than was required to help you. The DNC registry is for telemarketers, meaning sales, meaning all non-sales callers are exempt from filtering out any numbers registered. The FTC never kept this a secret, and practically begged you all to read the linked FAQ at registration time.

ftc.gov

I disagree with any advice or suggestion to answer abuse from collectors with more abuse. That kind of juvenile action may only get you sued faster.

Detailed discussion of debt with third parties is illegal for collectors, as is excess or needless skip tracing. If you want real revenge, make the offender wrap his apology in thousand dollar bills for denying your rights.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

Ms. Jolley, now that you've practiced your no-call request here, deliver it to the actual caller, which does not maintain this site or this web page. Your caller is not going to dutifully study random forum complaints and cannot magically determine which numbers should not be called based on anonymous comments.

Both GE Money and Discover are sue-happy lenders. Be certain you are not dealing with a third party collector in disguise. See if otherwise you have state collection laws which apply to original creditors and will help you defeat the noise and abuse.

Here are the federal laws for third party collection agencies:
ftc.gov

Given the excessive hostile and illegal tactics consistently reported in this thread, I would disregard any advice as from Tass to ''block 'em / ignore 'em''. Every violation these Kramers commit is a log for your fire in court. They can be burned for $1K statutory, any actual damages (shame, pain, and suffering being easy results of collector abuse), and anything else your state law can provide as a weapon.

Ritzi did the right thing last May. She smelled a rat, staightened her spine, and got on a Cert Mail paper trail, which rubs a collector's nose in the laws it must follow and makes your potential case much simpler to pursue.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

Jennifer: Your issue has been echoed in other threads for collectors and junk callers. Every recycled phone number drags behind it the flotsam of former owners. Skip tracers are watching various databases and testing dead ends all the time for signs of life from their prey. You are not the first to report that the calls begin soon after mobile device activation, sometimes within minutes.

One point I've not pressed in this thread is that one should not rely on verbal demands to stop calls for strangers. Both federal law and the workplace culture of the high volume collectors permit them to assume you're a liar and keep calling. Turn up your volume on paper. It's called a ''cease-comm'' for short, and it is best sent USPS Certified with a return card. The recipient risks a lawsuit from you if your orders are ignored. You may already be due some payback if you can prove abusive tactics or foul words were used in an effort to collect debt. You might get some legal traction from a harassing or annoying call pattern as well.

Tamara: Yours is another very common issue the catcallers and collection trolls never accept as true. Crap One and lenders like it are primarily in the business of tricking people into digging the deepest debt hole possible, then refusing to send down any rope when help is needed most, laying blame entirely on the debtor. Their profits come from delinquency and not ''responsible behavior''.

With her account ripe for slaughter, your mom has run out of options and was forced to default. Our corpo-friendly ''rocket docket'' judges don't see it that way, and really can't in the face of contracts weighted heavily in the lenders' favor. A frequent plaintiff on the court calendars, Capital One will gleefully get her sued, adding greater burden to shrinking resources and possibly rising medical debt. All of this mess can be averted if its favorite attack dogs like Allied Interstate are swatted across the nose soon enough. Since your mother is in a strategic default, you must continue thinking strategically and raise disputes on paper as the FTC advises when collectors call.

One thing I missed back in September was Tony's claim that AI ''identified themselves'' as the original creditor, if I read his clumsy sentence correctly. That kind of deception is not unheard of from Allied Interstate and other large debt buyers and collectors. It's exactly the sort of thing to watch for as the annoying calls pour in, illegal practices which can help damage the opposition when you go to court, either to defend or prosecute.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

See the thread linked below for notes on ''WCA'', an acronym for Worldwide Commerce Associates.

(6093189538) whocalled.us

See the thread linked below for notes on ''WCA'', an acronym for Worldwide Commerce Associates.

(6093189538) whocalled.us

It's not considered a ''scam'' to locate alleged debtors by phone. You don't need a valid debt or a derogatory trade line on your credit reports to be hassled by debt collectors. They call third parties to alleged debtors all the time for permitted skip tracing purposes, or often pretending it's a trace to annoy and shame an intended target whose location is already known.

To a ''not me'' case I always recommend putting the agency on notice, just as you would if you were the target and the debt claim was invalid. Send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril.

GC, I see you're also getting calls from other agencies. You may of course have to ''lather, rinse, repeat'' with each agency, but it will be a final solution if your tormentors are smart enough to stay out of court.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

Perhaps, but saying ''I am broke'' is not a defense. If you are certain the debt claim is invalid, send whatever collection agency a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

LG, you ''have told them numerous times'' only by voice, which is precisely why PASI keeps hassling you. If you are certain the debt claim is invalid, send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril.

Meantime, you might consider monitoring the collection calls and taking notes. Annoying call patterns and hostile behavior are among the unfair practices you can use against an agency should it persist in yanking your chain. It is not the case in general that debt collectors will leave messages ''if it's important''. Taking your money is always important to them, and so is the avoidance of easy lawsuits arising from their apparent violation of your privacy rights.

Luna, you're being called by a debt collector known for illegal practices. Ignoring all the calls may cost you valuable evidence you can turn against PRA. If you've been dunned and not responded with a prompt written dispute, you've only made it simpler to get yourself sued. PRA is a frequent plaintiff on my court calendar, tearing into people's assets by the dozen because the simple challenges to their claims were never made.

Neok was probably getting skip trace calls for someone else. You don't need a valid debt or a derogatory trade line on your credit reports to be hassled by debt collectors. They call third parties to alleged debtors all the time for permitted skip tracing purposes, or often pretending it's a trace to annoy and shame an intended target whose location is already known.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

Posing as police is of course against the laws for debt collectors. Ditto for false threats of litigation and any threat of asset seizure or bodily arrest.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

People, let's not continue to follow the bad example of Megan, Xcx, and ''mad as heck''. You must deliver your no-call request to the actual caller, which does not maintain this site or this web page. Your caller is not going to dutifully study random forum complaints and cannot magically determine which numbers should not be called based on anonymous comments. It is extremely foolish to publicize phone numbers you mean to protect in an open forum where any harvester and scammer can collect them.

Juan, get your story straight. Either you don't owe anything or you need to see proof that you do. Don't bother demanding validation if you're totally sure the account is not yours or you cannot be sued for it.

You ''have told them numerous times'' to cease calling and send proof strictly by voice, and that is the sole reason PRA continued to torture you. As I have advised in this thread before, your demands must be on paper and sent USPS CMRR if you want to be taken seriously. Per the FDCPA in fact, you are *not owed* any debt validation unless your demand is in writing!

Ms. Zink, your caller is not going to dutifully study random forum complaints and cannot magically determine which numbers should not be called based on anonymous comments. Your parent (or guardian) should be able to revoke call permission on your behalf. My comment from Sep 2011 explains more.

Now that you've practiced your no-call request here, deliver it to the actual caller, which does not maintain this site or this web page. How you handle this depends on the type of caller and what's been said, which for the readers would have been very useful information to share. That is the function of a mystery caller site.

Your caller is not going to dutifully study random forum complaints and cannot magically determine which numbers should not be called based on anonymous comments. The magic phrase you want for sales callers is ''Place my number *on* your Do Not Call list''.

This is an old scam which for some reason has come back into fashion the past couple of years. It's known as the ''phoner toner'', among other names. It sounds like Sue is ahead of this game, but I'll remark for the benefit of others.

The office machine supplies, if you ever receive them, will be the worst junk scraped from the back of a Chinese boat. The cost will be jacked up to maybe four times the street price of *good* supplies, and an obscene ''delivery fee'' is also likely. The scammer tries to find the one flunkie in a company who can be fooled into agreeing to a product order, and heavily edited responses from that employee will be waved in your bosses' faces as ''proof'' that a bill is owed if contested. Then will come hostile and/or illegal collection calls, probably with an even more inflated amount claimed.

The US has an old postal rule which says that any merchandise received without an order may be kept as a gift. The sender can huff and fume all he likes, but will not get any flimsy fake billing to stick. Possibly there are similar laws where you live.

Betsy-Jessica, if you're going to disagree with a comment, you could do us all the courtesy of actually staying on topic and not pretending you are multiple persons.

My comment from last week does not say to ''trust government''. It does not talk about placing undue trust in anyone. I was quite specific on the concept of self-reliance; federal and state laws provide the levers, but they do nothing until we citizens use them. If you weren't making so many fumes about an irrelevant political position, you could see that.

A number of prior comments here had cried out for guidance, so I tried to provide some. Similar questions and concerns are raised every day in forums like this by those who are fed up ''to there'' with the collectors' noise. Not everyone shares your satisfaction with the Ostrich Mode of not really dealing with days and weeks of collections calls. If no one ever resists collection agencies when they bend the limits of regulation and burn a fast trail to people's assets by denying their rights, the abuses will only worsen and affect more people. Because ''da gubmint'' you distrust cannot continuously tap all our phones at once, it's up to individual call recipients to make notes and record audio and rub the collection agencies' faces in the rules they are breaking.

The promo copy from the VRS website paints a typically aggressive and vaguely sunny picture for its clients: ''Our primary focus is the efficient and successful recovery of your company’s receivables within a fully compliant environment.'' (vitalsolutions.net) Recent FDCPA cases say that this agency is ''compliant'' with its profit mission but not with federal law. Its reps are reported to use the same old bag of tricks: illegal threats, bullying, deception, and harassment. The ''block 'em / ignore 'em'' crowd cannot seek damage awards when this bad behavior happens to them because they throw away all the evidence.

EOS-CCA, alternately or formerly (I forget) known as Collecto and Collection Company of America. EOS is the owner outside the US ... and yes, this is not an outfit to be trusted.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

Yep, they lie to you and continue to call because they can legally assume you are a liar and keep hammering at you until you give an answer they want. This is possibly the most common offense across the collections industry.

To a ''not me'' case I always recommend putting the agency on notice, just as you would if you were the target and the debt claim was invalid. Send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril.

JT, the magic phrase with legit sales callers is ''place my number ON your do-not-call list''. Telemarketers are required to maintain such lists, and I advise making the demand in print and sending it USPS Certified to stubborn callers. In this case, you face a credit reprice scam caller, which may not even be located within the US, which means your proposed lawsuit fails before it begins.

First, the proper term is ''cease and desist''. Why you would want to ''assist'' a scam caller is beyond me. (The other word you wanted was ''infuriates''.) Next, you can't send a letter or a summons without a valid US address. These scammers hide themselves well even if domestic, changing phone numbers the way you might change your bedsheets.

Third, the $11K fine is an outdated reference seen widely in casual search results. The current max fine is $16K for violation of the Telemarketing Sales Rule, the law to which the DNC registry links. You can't touch that, since the TSR provides no private right of action unless you can claim ''$50,000 or more in actual damages''. It's next to impossible for a single phone call to deliver that much ''pain and suffering''. Really this is for your state AG or the FTC to pursue.

business.ftc.gov

You need a claim under state law or TCPA to bring your own suit against a sales caller, not to mention a valid business name and that US address, and a paper trail proving you revoked consent to call. These ''Rachel'' scammers won't give you any of those things. Otherwise I'd encourage you to keep detailed call logs and work up a suit.

File complaints with the FTC, and attorneys general. A mass of complaints has helped the FTC choke off several credit reprice scammers in the past two years. In November one such scam firm in Atlanta was busted in federal court. Its assets were seized and its principals were fitted for orange jumpsuits. This is the first time I know of that a credit reprice scammer has faced criminal charges, and the case sets a long overdue example.

Sorry, Mo. You're not right. The FTC makes two demands of third party collectors which are often in conflict. A collector must make ''meaningful disclosure'' of its identity yet respect the privacy of whoever is named on a debt account. Some collectors fear that leaving a message may expose account discussion to the wrong person, which can get them sued. Many others have turned to the clumsy practice of trying to get a person to self-authenticate in a canned message. Hence those absurd commands to stop listening if you're not the intended target.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

No harm in using ''crap'', because the term is accurate. There has been a rash of SMS spam like this. It should be quickly apparent that nobody has won any stupid retailer contest from Amazon, Best Buy, Macy's, Wal-Mart, or anyplace else. No one is getting gift cards, nor have they been specially chosen to test any costly toys from Apple. It's a fraud and there is plenty of discussion warning people of this in the 800Notes forums.

I've a recent story in a thread about another InfoCision client in which I detail how I buried this highly annoying commercial fundraiser for good. Simply put, I followed my own advice, using available laws to my advantage. It's not difficult, and I wish I could have done it sooner. While others continue to report nuisance calls about the dozens of InfoCision clients, my phones have been stone quiet for months. We get almost no charity calls now, since this one Akron firm was responsible for at least 85% of them in our household.

(9018819984) whocalled.us

As for the insistence on ''block 'em / ignore 'em / do nothing'' repeated in this thread, I think I've handily proven this is not a strategy which kills the weeds at their roots. I don't mind a little criticism, but I do have a problem with cowardly head games. The opposition to my advice might carry more weight if ''George'', ''Henry'', ''Ken'', ''Sandi'', ''Florida Wilma'', ''JZM'', and ''Robert'' were not the same person. It's not possible to have a consensus of one, and really you would think that one person could find a better hobby than talking to his multiple personalities.

Jackie, ''they call at least once a week'' because you have not set your demands on Certified Mail paper, as I have advised here repeatedly. Once you have that USPS return card, they call again at risk of a lawsuit from you to shut their holes for good.

Here's the industry instruction manual:
ftc.gov

Debt collectors across the industry are trained to believe that you are lying when you say ''wrong number''. Federal law permits them to keep hammering the same third parties until they get an answer they like, on the pretense that you have given faulty replies. Fraudulent skip tracing is arguably the biggest problem created by these agencies, which think that your rights end where their earnings targets begin.

Also, there is nothing clever about the clumsy self-authentication routine in that canned call. Those absurd commands to ''stop listening if you're not the droid we're after'' and ''oops, since you listened too long you need to fess up'' are a widespread industry response to a muddy issue of privacy rights in the FDCPA, which was famously explored in the Foti-NCO case. Ever since that ruling, collection agencies walk a tightrope between mandates of ''meaningful disclosure'' and observing privacy.

Debt collectors are already ''not allowed'' to make false threats of litigation.
ftc.gov

This may be the usual dirty debt collector within the U.S. or a fake collector from South Asia. Either way their empty threats of arrest, imprisonment, lawsuit filing, and/or asset seizure violate federal and state laws. Try to get a business name and share it with the readers. By federal law this name cannot be withheld. If the offending agency is domestic, you can serve it a REAL summons for the abuse.

More like an opportunity to be given the business. Alliance One is a debt collector. Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

I don't know who you think you've written to, but you should be aware that this is an open forum and not a private means of messaging. When the scam callers start pelting that number you've publicized, they will know exactly how to fool you, by posing as people who ''might know your mother''.

Ms. Henson, these forums are strictly for call recipients to share their findings. They are NOT direct or private channels to the phone bank boiler rooms we comment upon. Rather than protect those two phone numbers, you've just given them away to any scammer and data harvester who might want to abuse them. If you can provide a business name and/or details on the caller's stated purpose, you might get a more helpful response.

Possibly it's Frontline Asset Strategies.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

Michaela: Changing a phone number does not qualify as the ''direct approach'' I had advocated. Your problem may only be compounded if a determined skip tracer has worked out your locale, so you'll be getting junky calls intended for multiple strangers.

You did a great job spreading your complaints to the right desks, but you don't need to wait for a rescue which may never come. You are in the best possible position to crush the problem while rubbing Bayview's nose in the laws it must follow. You may already be due some payback if you can prove abusive tactics or foul words were used in an effort to collect debt. You might get some legal traction from a harassing or annoying call pattern as well.

CariBear expanded on my advice very well. What I also like to do in my cease-comms is briefly document the dates of calls and the numbers appearing in my Caller ID logs. Just to be a pain I include the twenty digit USPS CMRR tracking number someplace on the page. None of this is strictly needed to enforce a ''shut up'' demand, but if I am forced to get ugly with the offending caller I won't be hearing, ''Oh my, we cannot determine which calls or what letter you mean.''

I've had to slap cease-comms on three collection agencies since last Spring, all looking for strangers. One of those alleged debtors abandoned my current phone number several years ago and can be found in about forty seconds via search engine. The combined eighteen dollars spent on fuel and USPS fees were a cheap investment toward the thousands I might tear from someone's hide if any of these dimwits feel like ignoring my written orders.

CB, I haven't seen your handle on this site for months. Welcome back and thanks for the assistance.

Better than half the comments in this thread since late 2006 describe skip trace calls looking for people either unknown or kinfolk to the call recipients. Clearly you don't need a valid debt or a derogatory trade line on your credit reports to be hassled by debt collectors. They call third parties to alleged debtors all the time for permitted skip tracing purposes, or often pretending it's a trace to annoy and shame an intended target whose location is already known.

If you're not their intended target, it's best to tell them in writing. It's called a ''cease-comm'' for short, and it is best sent USPS Certified with a return card. Under federal law they must comply with your written notice. You may already be due some payback if you can prove abusive tactics or foul language was used in an effort to collect debt. You might get some legal traction from a harassing or annoying call pattern as well.

The comment by ''L Schmidt'' in May 2008 tells us the kind of collector thinking you're up against, here and across the industry. The commentor was obviously not the alleged debtor, yet the phone jockey pressed on with his well-rehearsed bullying and ''just ASSUMED and indicated that [Schmidt] was being a deadbeat''.

Those of you who are the alleged debtors are yet more prone to this kind of headgaming. The primary object for you is not to merely to quiet your phones, but defend your position in a proper written dispute. Again this should be sent USPS CMRR. If caught on the phone, you make information flow in one direction, only to you. You do not ''settle'' or say you're broke, you demand proof of claim, on real paper.

Commentor responses to this agency's behavior have varied, and most are inadequate.
- You don't go blocking and ignoring calls and letters which may give you precious ammunition in the form of legal violations.
- You don't bother ''escalating'' to a supervisor, who will either be some poser in a neighboring cubicle or the guy who trained the first rep to abuse you in the first place.
- When your federal and state rights are denied, you don't sit waiting for God or a class action suit or even your state AG to levy minor penalties which may never come. Federal law grants you private right of action to sue and collect from the collector, at low or no cost, and you only get a year to do it from the date of violation!

Here's where to start your homework on your FDCPA rights and your best responses to collectors:
ftc.gov

Care to tell us who or what ''this caller'' is and why data security is even a concern?

Rev, you did the right thing in refusing to comply. You notice how hostile the scammer got when you would not drop everything for his false urgency. They're ''calling everyone in the world'' who ever got near a MicroSoft product? Boy, that's rich, as if it's so systematic.

800Notes has a few threads on this scam. Essentially some fiend in a boiler room, usually outside the U.S., wants to coax you into dropping your firewall and security measures and play havoc with your system, possibly with the goal of then selling you the ''solution'' to the problem they caused. Worse yet they might plunder your hard drives for whatever can be sold or used against you. They count on most computer owners being ''appliance users'' who don't understand what's under the hood and being easily misled.

The awkward accents and their penchant for posing as ''MicroSoft'', and getting certain technical details wrong, are major giveaways. Often the reps become hostile and curse you out if you indicate any sort of informed resistance.

I'd say you already have harassment, Jennifer, not to mention illegal threats. This may be the usual dirty debt collector within the U.S., such as from the 'Corona Cabal' of fraudulent agencies, or a fake collector from South Asia. Either way their empty threats of arrest, imprisonment, lawsuit filing, and/or asset seizure violate federal and state laws. Try to get a business name and share it with the readers. By federal law this name cannot be withheld.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

To a ''not me'' case I always recommend putting the agency on notice, just as you would if you were the target and the debt claim was invalid. Send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

Wayne: Those absurd commands to ''stop listening if you're not the droid we're after'' and ''oops, since you listened too long you need to fess up'' are a widespread industry response to a muddy issue of privacy rights in the FDCPA. Unless you live under a telescreen like Winston Smith, no one can self-authenticate anything through a canned message. By that logic a toddler and a housecat could also ''admit'' to being the same person.

Tommy (aka Tom) gave some reckless advice based on common myths a few months ago. Corrections follow:

- The term is *statute* of limitations, not ''status''.
- The debt accounts are not necessarily ''out of stat''.
- A full-on cease-desist is NOT the correct repsonse unless the debt is not yours or is legally uncollectable. Everyone else should be drafting a dispute letter, which may contain a notice limiting or banning phone calls. Cutting off all contact will only invite a lawsuit.
- The FDCPA statutory award is $1K max per action, NOT per violation. The agency can melt down your phone all week long, but the penalty is capped unless you can prove actual damages.
- Waiting to get sued is not much of a strategy, given the risk of facing a ''Mayberry judge'' who doesn't comprehend collections law and is biased in favor of the corporate lawyers. Collecting evidence of the agency's violations and planning to make it pay YOU for the bad behavior is a much better posture.

It is agreed that NCO is well known for its history of lawbreaking, and that you owe them no answers on the phone, regardless of what you may or may not owe in dollars. Start your homework on your federal rights via the link below.

ftc.gov

Apparently a fifth grade reading level ''doesn't really mean anything anymore''. As non-sales callers, all debt collectors are exempt from filtering out any numbers registered on the national DNC. The FTC never kept this a secret, and practically begged you to read the linked FAQ at registration time.

ftc.gov

What's more, you don't need a valid debt or a derogatory trade line on your credit reports to be hassled by debt collectors. They call third parties to alleged debtors all the time for permitted skip tracing purposes, or often pretending it's a trace to annoy and shame an intended target whose location is already known.

If you're not their intended target, it's best to tell them in writing. It's called a ''cease-comm'' for short, and it is best sent USPS Certified with a return card. Under federal law they must comply with your written notice. You may already be due some payback if you can prove abusive tactics or foul language was used in an effort to collect debt. You might get some legal traction from a harassing or annoying call pattern as well.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also if your state laws are stronger.
ftc.gov

I'm better than half sure your ''WCA'' is an acronym for Worldwide Commerce Associates. This is a devious affiliate marketer which harvests your contact data AND your consent to be pestered by any huckster willing to trade in sucker lists. Possibly you have filled in a survey or applied for a store discount card or put your ink to some other seemingly innocent agreement which had WCA agreement language buried where you were meant to miss it.

The WCA problem is so bad they have an entire department and website devoted to ''compliance'' with demands for the calls and data mining to stop. Rather than rely on their ''opt-out'' mechanism, I would send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card, and demand that ''the buck stops here'' regarding the trade of your personal data to total strangers.

Mrs. C, your caller is not going to dutifully study random forum complaints and cannot magically determine which numbers should not be called based on anonymous comments.

If you're getting skip-traced about your daughter's account, you should both be certain you've not mistaken your caller for a third party collector, possibly one in disguise. Here are the federal laws those collectors must follow:
ftc.gov

VF, your caller is not going to dutifully study random forum complaints and cannot magically determine which numbers should not be called based on anonymous comments.

Now that you've practiced your no-call request here, deliver it to the actual caller, which does not maintain this site or this web page. How you handle this depends on the type of caller and what's been said, which for the readers would have been very useful information to share. That is the function of a mystery caller site.

I had the same thought about Alan's theory. I've had several kinds of POTS devices and modems sharing my lines since the pre-internet years, and I find that kind of hacker ambush extremely unlikely if not laughable. The stream of consciousness spray of comments is not helping his argument, either.

Dale and/or Nadine: Hassling the neighbors with supposed skip trace calls is known as a ''block party'' in collector parlance, and often done to create false shame. Your number is only ''linked'' in the sense that Palisades Collections / Asta Funding decided to cast a wider net for your former neighbor.

To a ''not me'' case I always recommend putting the agency on notice, just as you would if you were the target and the debt claim was invalid. Send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Biff, please do tell us how a survey firm is able to violate your FDCPA rights, and how your comment is not yet another misfire from a paper mill law firm known for carelessly spamming these unknown caller forums?

Rhonda, AACC will continue to torture you until you get off the phone and get on a paper trail, as I have explained here several months ago. The more you argue with these goons the more they will assume you are a liar trying to ''hide from responsibility'', or some such delusion.

The baloney about ''fraud against Social Security'' is not only false but makes no legal sense. This may be the usual dirty debt collector within the U.S. or a fake collector from South Asia. Their empty threats of arrest, imprisonment, lawsuit filing, and/or asset seizure violate federal and state laws. Try to get a business name and share it with the readers. By federal law this name cannot be withheld.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

On 800Notes in the ''Debt Collection Calls'' forum is a thread titled ''Fake payday loan collection scams - Please list new numbers here [2]''. My notes and advice on the payday loan collection thugs, updated Oct 2011, can be seen on the lead page.

Travis, this is how it's legal:
ftc.gov

RPM reps can't tell you much until you identify as the alleged debtor. There are other identifiers which work as well as SSN, but you are not required to answer or cooperate on the phone, much as the bullying attitude you were given might suggest otherwise. You are not required to ''settle'' anything before you see real proof on real paper, either.

If RPM thinks you owe something, you were owed a dunning letter promptly after that initial phone chat. Be sure to respond on paper with a dispute and validation request, adding that you either restrict or revoke consent to call again. Given the industry's documented need to break laws to get at your assets, you should dispute even if you agree slightly with its claim.

If the account is not legally collectable, or it's simply not you they want, you're free to send a full cease-comm, cutting off all contact. Send all notices via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft them. Pay close attention to all communication and document it well. If those contacts yield legal violations, you may collect from *them* through a judge or arbitrator. Your closely timed calls could, for instance, be part of a pattern of annoyance or harassment which is violative.

Linda, ''they still continue to call'' precisely because you are relying only on verbal demands. I tried to explain that problem and your best option for revoking call permission in the comment just behind yours.

How your number was obtained, likely through the many databases which track our financial footprints, is not so important as how you are treated when the agency calls. If by ''all hours of the night'' you mean way outside the default hours specified in state and federal law, you may have a cause of legal action. No person, alleged debtor or third party, is to be harassed or abused, per the FDCPA.

Susan, you could have started with the advice I gave here, all of two comments behind yours, fifteen months ago. EOS is permitted by law (in essence) to assume you're a liar until you provide an answer it wants, such as a promise to pay unverified debt or a confession that you've been hiding the alleged debtor in your attic all this time. You will endure another three years of pestering unless you get off the phone and start on a paper trail.

To a ''not me'' case I always recommend putting the agency on notice, just as you would if you were the target and the debt claim was invalid. Send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril.

It may be the case that multiple collectors have been hitting you with skip trace calls. You'll of course have to repeat this process of a written demand with each new agency that appears.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Not responding to calls makes nothing ''obvious'' to a debt collector deploying an autodialer. What's more, many agencies shy away from messages out of fear of committing privacy violations.

If you want to pin Allied to legal compliance, the DNC registry is the wrong direction. The DNC registry is for telemarketers, meaning sales, meaning all debt collectors are exempt. This fact was not kept secret from you when you registered your numbers. The FCC is also a blind alley, as it has almost no jurisdiction. Attorneys general and the FTC are valid complaint venues which help the public good. But understand that you must confront collection agencies directly if you dislike their treatment of your privacy and consumer rights.

The FTC has given you the FDCPA to defend yourself. See also your state laws for additional support.
ftc.gov

Both logging and recording calls is a smart move. Allied Interstate has a long history of lawbreaking behavior. Their rudeness can turn into dollars, capische?

No, it's not ''that simple''. Your complaints were misfired, as Kt has already tried to explain. The following URL links to the FTC FAQ page which the DNC site *twice* coaxed you to read before you registered your numbers. These are the rules YOU AGREED TO. See items 28 through 32 in particular.
ftc.gov

''Me'', the collector keeps calling because you are relying only on verbal demands and the agency assumes you are a liar. You might want to follow the advice in my Oct 2010 comment right behind yours. It would also be nice if someone would finally provide a business name in this thread.

Sunday calls may be prohibited in your state but not everywhere, and not under federal law. I would also take the ''personal business'' to be code for debt collection, being one of the usual pat phrases used to avoid triggering a privacy violation.

ftc.gov

Michaela: When phone numbers are recycled they carry the flotsam of all previous users. I would suggest a direct approach, the best one being a no-call demand sent via USPS Certified with return card. Once you get that nice mint green card you can invoke FDCPA if any calls are abusive and TCPA if automated calls are pelting a mobile device.

Telephone Consumer Protection Act
the-dma.org

Fair Debt Collection Practices Act
ftc.gov

Caller abandoned at four rings, barely legal by FCC regs.

Ms. Walker, conversing with your own alter ego is not helping your story.

Who are ''these people'', and have you tried not relying on verbal demands?

If you can suspend your political rant and share a business name, that would help the readers much more. Most of the nation does not enjoy the strong Texas collection laws, and many states have a far longer SoL on the various debt categories.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

If you're looking for a system to blame for runaway collection abuses, you might look at the name-brand bailout banks which quietly bankroll the very debt buyers and collectors which have made lawbreaking a vital part of their business models.

You've sadly been given fairly typical treatment from a Buffalo Bully debt collector. If you have a business name to share, it would help the readers. Meantime you have a cause of action under FDCPA. Third parties to the alleged debtor like yourself don't get a lot of coverage by FDCPA, but it does say ''any person'' cannot be abused or misled by a collector.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Could you describe what the caller wanted and/or provide a business name? I can think of a few categories of hostile callers this would match, and they each need a different approach.

Sounds like a debt collector on tiptoe around the privacy mandate within state and federal laws. Try to get a business name and share it with the readers. By federal law this name cannot be withheld. Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

800Notes has a few threads on this problem. The crap messages may also claim a gift card from Amazon or Wal-Mart is the prize.

Greg, try using pairs of single quotes in place of doubles when inserting URLs. WCU has a strange bug which will otherwise reject your submission.

''Example'' whocalled.us

Asset Acceptance Capital Corporation is a huge debt buyer, mostly of moldy, out-of-stat accounts. In January 2012 AACC was fined by the FTC for FCRA and FDCPA violations. Currently it ranks #2 among those debt collectors which have earned the highest FTC civil penalties. This case is a virtual catalog of the offenses committed by all the worst debt buyers and collectors, often while chasing claims which cannot be proven.

Under FTC Settlement, Debt Buyer Agrees to Pay $2.5 Million for Alleged Consumer Deception
ftc.gov

This case inspired a brand new FTC alert which was frankly overdue, given that consumer watchdogs have criticized the illegal antics of volume debt buyers for years.

Time-Barred Debts: Understanding Your Rights When It Comes to Old Debts
ftc.gov

Lowery: What part of the rules *you agreed to* when you registered for DNC do you not understand?
ftc.gov

Debt collectors are not telemarketers, therefore exempt from filtering out any numbers registered on a no-call list. The FTC never kept this a secret, and practically begged you to read the linked FAQ at registration time.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

To a ''not me'' case I always recommend putting the agency on notice, just as you would if you were the target and the debt claim was invalid. Send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

You missed the memo by over a year. The 2009 Truth in Caller ID Act was signed by the Prez in December 2010. Sadly it has no private right of action, but there are no exemptions beyond law enforcement or persons under court order. A violative spoof depends on the intent of the call source, since there are a few perfectly innocent reasons to munge CID.

govtrack.us

Legitimate Comments Would Not Be Repeated Month After Month In A Spam-Like Fashion. The Only Response Alex Copeland Makes To Every Kind Of Call In This Asinine Capitalized Text Style Is To ''Always Answer'' -- Even Though Many Telemarketers Are Paid For A Completed Call. If Call Centers Were That Concerned About Their Telco Bills They Would Not Consider The Phone An Ideal Instrument To Get Them Paid More.

More notes on Copeland's dubious advice are found here from August 2011:
whocalled.us

Liza, your caller is not going to dutifully study random forum complaints and cannot magically determine which numbers should not be called based on anonymous comments. If you're not their intended target, you must tell them in writing to make your demand stick. It's called a ''cease-comm'' for short, and it is best sent USPS Certified with a return card. Under federal law they must comply with your written notice. You may already be due some payback if you can prove abusive tactics or foul language was used in an effort to collect debt. You might get some legal traction from a harassing or annoying call pattern as well.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

I'm not seeing any connection between Portfolio Recovery Associates, based in Virginia, and SRA, which calls New Jersey home.

Thomas and JC are on the right track in terms of sussing the truth and taking action. Many victims of these thugs cry like ''Anrgy Mom'' that ''they have all my personal info''. This is a natural result of giving away that sensitive data like candy on PDL application forms. Payday lending is an industry beyond help of reform which needs to be outlawed for everyone's safety.

This may be the usual dirty debt collector within the U.S. or a fake collector from overseas. Either way their empty threats of arrest, imprisonment, lawsuit filing, and/or asset seizure violate federal and state laws. Try to get a business name and share it with the readers. By federal law this name cannot be withheld.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

On 800Notes in the ''Debt Collection Calls'' forum is a thread titled ''Fake payday loan collection scams - Please list new numbers here [2]''. My notes and advice on the payday loan collection thugs, updated Oct 2011, can be seen on the lead page.

People are indeed free to comment as they like, as the many trolls and spammers on this site demonstrate daily. It is not useful to the user community to have an entire thread of people saying ''stop calling'', ''take me off'', and other pleadings which make absolutely no sense. Unknown callers are not going to dutifully study online complaints and cannot magically determine which numbers should not be called based on anonymous comments.

These kind of misdirected complaints are made dozens of times a week on mystery caller sites, and they cannot be allowed to inspire more. Sooner or later someone will copy that poor example set by Frank and Tony and put up personal email addresses and phone numbers where any scammer can harvest them. The kicker is the commentors are mistaken in thinking they have done anything practical to end the unwanted calls. If feelings get hurt, it's too damned bad, but better than inviting more potential abuse from strangers in a call center.

You and maybe a million others got the same crap, promising a gift card from Best Buy, Wal-Mart, or Amazon. Some threads on 800Notes explain more. The fact that you've seen more than one come-on from the same number should give you pause.

A few months ago an exec at Pezzuto Law tried to bribe the Admin of 800Notes to quietly delete comments about this agency they didn't like. When that naturally failed, several Pezzuto threads were spammed with threats against the site owner and false charges that she is a child molester. That shows you the kind of walking vomit which populates that office.

It's been later alleged that the Pezzuto name is a false front or perhaps one of those ''rent a lawyer's shingle'' deals. Other reports speak of all the favorite lawbreaking tricks of the worst debt collectors. Take nothing these criminals say at face value. Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

As for the person initiating the three new threads here on WCU, have you decided your name is ''Ian'', ''Jim'', or ''RJ''?

Collection calls to PoE are allowed, but a pattern of annoyance or harassment is not, per federal law (FDCPA) and probably your state law. To shave this a little closer, calls to the workplace should not be needed when the alleged debtor can already be found at a personal number. Many debt collectors paint this as skip tracing and hassle the workplace anyway, sometimes as a first stop, knowing the calls will create false shame. This very common tactic is deceptive and abusive but hard to prove.

The FDCPA helpfully provides that anyone at the PoE can revoke call permission. The alleged debtor is in the best position to quiet the calls to relatives, neighbors, and ''near-bys'', a demand best made on paper.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Anna, now you know why blocking and ignoring is a losing strategy against debt collectors, particularly one like PRA which went out of its way to arm itself with a huge pile of numbers to throw at your few. First you have to determine if it's you or someone else being targeted and send the appropriate demand letter. The FTC provides beginner's advice and guidance.

In light of my discussion with Cate here, you may want to send notices to more than one address. Some recommend a street address over a PO box, while I would also consider PRA's Registered Agent in your state.

ftc.gov

I guess having a minimum fifth grade reading comprehension level ''does not mean anything''. Linked below are the rules which the DNC site *twice* coaxed you to read and which *you agreed to* when you registered.

ftc.gov
See items 28 through 32 in particular.

Vet, I will presume that all your efforts were verbal. High volume debt collectors are notoriously deaf to verbal requests. Not to mention you face one which seems to enjoy being confused for the gun lobby. Third parties to the alleged debtor like yourself don't get a lot of coverage by FDCPA, but it does say ''any person'' cannot be abused or misled by a collector.

To a ''not me'' case I always recommend putting the agency on notice, just as you would if you were the target and the debt claim was invalid. Send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Buster, you're wrong on one point. PRA appears on my court calendar as a plaintiff throughout the year. I'm sure the numbers involved in junk debt discourage filing suit on an entire portfolio, but some people are chosen for special punishment. To rebut a second point, communication by USPS is unlikely to give away an address the agency does not already possess or cannot find. I've seen numerous instances of collectors automatically dunning a street address when only a person's PO box was used for billing.

Having personal and poor experience with your former employer, I won't argue with your skill for selective aggravation. Poking at the beehive is not a strategy for everyone, and I personally like my revenge wrapped in thousand dollar bills. The collectors' own calls can be turned against them as pointy weapons, which is half my point in promoting education in relevant state and federal laws.

If your caller mentioned the Autism Spectrum Disorder Foundation or the ''Wings of Hope'' campaign, you are dealing with Akron's favorite employer InfoCision and its scamming client. Below are two links to ASDF threads:
(8557037107) whocalled.us
(8883258583) whocalled.us

Here are some extended notes on commercial fundraiser InfoCision and how I pinched off its phone bullying permanently:
(9018819984) whocalled.us

Before you go on blocking and ignoring collection calls, you may want to examine them for state and federal law violations.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Was this also debt collector Frost-Arnett, as cited under the other number?
whocalled.us

These are the rules which the DNC site *twice* coaxed you to read and which *you agreed to* when you registered.

ftc.gov
See items 28 through 32 in particular.

The magic phrase is NOT ''take me off'', but ''Add this number to your Do Not Call list.''

While one agency could in theory hire the other, CBE and NCO are large enough in their own right not to be in bed with PRA. NCO is a major debt buyer with its own history of civil punishment. I believe it's still the record holder from May 2004 for highest FTC penalty for FCRA violations. It's unclear if Asset Acceptance beat that record in its Jan 2012 spanking for ignoring both FCRA and FDCPA.

Cate, I may have misread your prior comments. You mention ''call #173'' on 05 March. Did a voice identify PRA in that call, or is this call #01 from some other agency? I'll hang from a limb here and suggest that PRA did stop calling (for a while) as promised, filed the spiteful 1099C, *maybe* tried you a few more times, then quietly sold the account. Not necessarily in that order, but that event sequence would make the most sense. There is also the chance that your new playmates are skip tracing for other people.

It's unclear if you can still sting PRA for continued collection activity prior to validation. You'd have to review your call logs and notes, if any, and all mail from PRA. Any demands to PRA do not travel if the account was sold, so it's tabula rasa when the new agency comes calling.

The Only Response Alex Copeland Makes To Every Kind Of Call In This Asinine Capitalized Text Style Is To ''Always Answer'' -- Even Though Many Telemarketers Are Paid For A Completed Call. If Call Centers Were That Concerned About Their Telco Bills They Would Not Consider The Phone An Ideal Instrument To Get Them Paid More.

More notes on Copeland's dubious advice are found here from August 2011:
whocalled.us

Might be nice if people would cite their sources. Cobra cribbed that entire comment from a fake blog shilling for paper mill Lexington Law, which purports to ''repair'' credit reports. Poisonous and faulty trade lines are of concern, but hardly the only threats presented by trashy collectors like PRA.

I've already linked to the FDCPA material a couple weeks ago. Here's the official home of FCRA:
ftc.gov

Challenging bad entries on credit reports is often a slow and vexing process, but it can be done without a middleman once you gain insight as to how reporting works and which legal tools are handy. Lexington is of course shy on detail and wants to scare people into becoming clients. Good advice and research can be found on the forums Credit InfoCenter and DebtorBoards, for no cost other than your time.

The signs point to medical debt buyer MedStar Funding in Austin, Texas. Its promo website apes the old CoinStar slogan: ''Turn your medical liens into cash.'' It does not appear linked to the mid-Atlantic hospital giant MedStar Health.

Medical billing is already a carnival game of error and fraud without weakening the chain of title further through sales of accounts -- which may not be ''delinquent'' at all. Treat a med debt claim like any other, a thing to be disputed on real paper until there is satisfactory proof on real paper.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Now that you've practiced your no-call request here, deliver it to the actual caller, which does not maintain this site or this web page. How you handle this depends on the type of caller and what's been said, which for the readers would have been very useful information to share.

What other site has that claim? I'm not seeing anything on the major caller forums.

Cate wrote:
} letter carrier does not have time to spend .....[processing CMRR]

This is not an excuse while everyone is wringing hands over the jobless rate. Fifty new hires each for PRA and its local USPS should solve that right quick.

} ''good press'' Portfolio Recovery receives

I've not had the displeasure of dueling with PRA, but I'm aware of what an investment darling it's become as it continues to break laws in the face of attorney general action, numerous lawsuits, and its role in the robo-perjury debacle with Providian and Martha Kunkle's daughter.

You may have a point with the governmental inroads. (... or is that inbreeding?) PRA owns a bunch of municipal sector collection agencies, which were sort of consolidated 15 months ago and rebranded under the Portfolio name. Then they went around spamming sites like this with softsoaping invitations to ''resolve'' debt accounts on their new lashed-up website. The site's intent was in part to muffle the complaint noise on those very sites.

The calls may not originate from the locale specified in the NANPA reference anyway. By chance is the sales language about security systems or ''Tom with Home Protection''? Many of their bot calls open with that absurd demand to ''not hang up''.

International origin or a sloppy spoof are my guesses.

TG, You don't need a valid debt or a derogatory trade line on your credit reports to be hassled by debt collectors. They call third parties to alleged debtors all the time for permitted skip tracing purposes, or often pretending it's a trace to annoy and shame an intended target whose location is already known.

You may well have a squeaky clean payment history, but if FNCB *thinks* you owe something you will still need to defend yourself. FNCB is bordering on harassment (as the FTC vaguely defines) with the call pattern you describe. The FCC would also likely frown on that high volume of abandoned calls. But you'll need meatier legal violations to spank them with.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Howdy again, PWR. You got so steamed you forgot to mention the business name. 800Notes and WhoCallsMe comments cite ''Total Card'', aka ''Total Card Recovery'' aka ''Total Recovery'' in Sioux Falls.

Here's the official dope on that FDCPA you all can use to bring the hurt to third party collectors:
ftc.gov

See also if your state laws are any tougher, and defend your rights.

A popular variant of credit reprice scam calls in the US falsely implies government backing as well. The bot lady says, ''This is your final notice as it relates to the financial stimulus'' in a sing-song schoolmarm voice.

Sorry, Imperial, but Pentagroup Financial is a third party debt collector. You don't need a valid debt or a derogatory trade line on your credit reports to be hassled by debt collectors. They call third parties to alleged debtors all the time for permitted skip tracing purposes, or often pretending it's a trace to annoy and shame an intended target whose location is already known. Runaway skip tracing is arguably the most common problem the debt industry creates.

To a ''not me'' case I always recommend putting the agency on notice, just as you would if you were the target and the debt claim was invalid. Send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Who are ''they'', please? Telemarketers and debt collectors are the usual stubborn types. The latter will assume you're a liar and are harboring the alleged debtor like a fugitive.

Learn how (just in case) to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

The DNC registry is not a magic shield for repelling all unwanted callers. You'd best understand the rules which the DNC site *twice* coaxed you to read and which *you agreed to* when you registered.

ftc.gov

How do, Cate. I remember responding to your MIA green card issue in April and July last year.
(8479942540) whocalled.us

I'd get a second opinion from a different Postmaster. The way Cert Mail is meant to work is that USPS controls and sends the return card, and should not surrender the mail piece until it's signed off. That independent handling is partly what makes the little card such hot legal evidence. Sadly, and stupidly, it's reported since my prior discussion that some large firms are granted an honor system arrangement in which the Cert Mail and first class are all delivered together, and it's left to the recipient to get the cards returned.

Personally I've not had a problem with ''lost on purpose'' return cards, and I've sent dozens to places with just as poor a reputation as PRA. This experience is echoed on other forums when this topic comes up. Your milage or abuse may vary.

When disputing a collector you should never be forced to extract USPS delivery receipts the hard way and risk a desperate challenge from the opposition about a ''custodian of records''. I would in fact roll that dodgy behavior into my civil complaint somewhere.

Not everyone enjoys a responsive AG or state consumer watchdog, so the direct actions I advise are what work most of the time and without waiting for a middleman. But these issues have to follow a strategy more than rigid instructions, so that ''gotchas'' and contingencies can be managed wisely. You found leverage and used it when primary options failed, and that's really a huge part of the task.

You know what you might try is another mailing, but not to the PRA headquarters. I'd bet they have a Registered Agent in your state, possibly one which reps many companies. The RA exists mainly to provide a presence in-state so people can easily send poison letters and file lawsuits. Some pro se litigants actually prefer dropping their Intent To Sue letters on the RA, where they might get the attention of a legal officer with half a brain. I should think your pile of calls from the past 12 months will make a dandy case.

DDS: A ''legitimate collection agency'' may in fact avoid leaving messages, and many do to sidestep the thorny problem of easily created privacy violations. Such agencies fear the easy lawsuits which result, yet may have no trouble breaking other laws, such as the part of the FDCPA about a harassing or annoying call pattern, or calling beyond permitted hours.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

The other W&F threads echo that verbal abuse, and it's probably enough for a tidy award in court.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

K: Debt collectors are notoriously deaf to verbal requests. To a ''not me'' case I always recommend putting the agency on notice, just as you would if you were the target and the debt claim was invalid. Send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

akaMom: Your complaints will be misfired. The DNC registry is for telemarketers, meaning sales, meaning all debt collectors are exempt. This fact was not kept secret from you when you registered your numbers. Attorneys general and the FTC are valid complaint venues which help the public good. But understand that you must confront collection agencies directly if you dislike their treatment of your privacy and consumer rights. Certainly those violative early bird calls qualify.

Debbie: Do you suppose Eric Schneiderman is going to drop everything for a civil action you can manage yourself? You get only a year to pursue FDCPA claims; you don't want them sitting idle. If you have a mint green USPS card returned from PRA, YOU are the one who can ''stop the calls NOW''.

Debt collectors must answer to a privacy mandate within the FDCPA, hence their obfuscation in messages and demands for identifying data in live calls. Of course, being shadowy works in their favor to make call targets anxious. As demonstrated here, many agencies fear an easy lawsuit from a privacy violation, yet have no trouble breaking other laws within the same Act.

The FDCPA doesn't fix a number to an annoying or harrassing call pattern, but anything past three a day would be over my own pain threshold. You might consider keeping a detailed call log for lawsuit purposes.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

This sounds like debt collection. Could be the usual US lawbreaker or a fake collector from South Asia. Try to get a business name and share it with the readers. By federal law this name cannot be withheld. Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

.... and the name of this headache is ...? One report from two years ago on 800Notes says it's NCO Financial.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Martin: Assuming the debt is ''out of stat'', you have a mint green USPS return card, and your cease-comm was both curt and clear, why are you sitting quietly while ''they still call occasionally''? The whole point of spending six dollars on a single mailed notice is to set up the agency for a lawsuit if your ''no-call'' orders are ignored.

For the curious, here are the federal laws third party collectors must obey:
ftc.gov

The full name should be Credit Management, aka CMI Group, a third party collector. Cable TV accounts are one of their three promoted specialties.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Are you sure that name isn't Stokes & Clinton?

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Are you sure that name isn't Prevail Systems?

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

800Notes and WhoCallsMe each have a pretty good pile of comments on the middle two numbers in your list. I take it this is supposedly a merchant credit card processor, but actually a swindle which has many people peed off.

At a guess the numbers may be spoofed and/or in use by boiler rooms outside the US, so they think they're untouchable, which emboldens the staff to excessive rudeness. It may be the case that the reps have criminal records, a sadly common feature in telemarketing.

If you corner this bunch in a lawsuit, those calls to the mobile device can be used as a weapon, even before you get to the cussing. California law appears to frown on recording those calls unless all parties give consent.

Did Le C. Hook Investigations slather spam on this site in November 2011? Try 18 times within six minutes for size. The same promo spam was slapped the same day on 800Notes and WhoCallsMe, often multiple times in the same thread.

further reading: whocalled.us

It may help if ''Jenn / Len / Cathi'' would pick one user name and stop talking to herself.

This is how it's legal. See items 28 through 32 in particular.
ftc.gov

Surveyors are not held to the thirteen hour calling window imposed on sales and debt collection calls, but the more polite firms observe similar hours.

I tried to tell her that this morning, LMA.
(4056646359) whocalled.us

Looks like the purpose of the NANPA reference has also been misunderstood.

One report on 800Notes from last summer claims it's a debt collector, but gives no name. The calls are most likely automated and being abandoned, which the FCC tolerates not more than 03% of the time. Meanwhile, the FTC gives you a handy tool in the form of the FDCPA for quieting collectors.

For many call categories you're best off sending a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril. Of course, this depends entirely on discovering a caller identity, and this caller is playing peekaboo long after your sack time. You may have little choice but to return the call when convenient and demand some answers.

By the by, while charities have DNC exemption, the commercial fundraisers most of them hire don't share the umbrella. Those call centers must add your number to an internal no-call list on request, and are subject to fines for noncompliance.

Now that you've practiced your no-call request here, deliver it to the actual caller, which does not maintain this site or this web page. How you handle this depends on the type of caller and what's been said, which for the readers would have been very useful information to share. That is the function of a mystery caller site.

Try not to complain so much, or at least release the Caps Lock, when you get a new flood of junk calls to that phone number you've publicized for every data harvester to find.

Dear Peggy J Myello:

Your caller is not going to dutifully study random forum complaints and cannot magically determine which numbers should not be called based on anonymous comments. These forums are strictly for call recipients to share their findings. They are NOT direct or private channels to the phone bank boiler rooms we comment upon. If you can provide a business name and/or details on the caller's stated purpose, you might get a more helpful response.

I see nothing has changed in the fifteen months since I first commented here ... same old hostile and lawbreaking practices. Mia's humorous wordplay is well taken. The thug collectors will insist they already are helping the nation by rescuing our fragile economy from hordes of lazy unemployed ''deadbeats'' ... failing of course to look in their own backyards for destructive behavior.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

I agree. At least get your own handle before you make inane troll remarks.

whocalled.us
whocalled.us
whocalled.us

Looks like the soundboard prank fanboys have been sniffing glue again.

whocalled.us
whocalled.us
whocalled.us

The other major caller forums consistently name United Check Processing, possibly in Amelia, Ohio. Other comments suggest frequent business name changes. It is not clear the callers have a true domestic presence. This could be a fake payday loan outfit in South Asia borrowing an american name or hiding behind one. The ''obscene, offensive'' behavior is entirely typical of this collection category, not to mention illegal.

Their empty threats of arrest, imprisonment, lawsuit filing, and/or asset seizure also violate federal and state laws. Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

On 800Notes in the ''Debt Collection Calls'' forum is a thread titled ''Fake payday loan collection scams - Please list new numbers here [2]''. My notes and advice on the payday loan collection thugs, updated Oct 2011, can be seen on the lead page.

This may be the usual dirty debt collector within the U.S. or a fake collector from overseas. Either way their empty threats of arrest, imprisonment, lawsuit filing, and/or asset seizure violate federal and state laws. Try to get a business name and share it with the readers. By federal law this name cannot be withheld.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

On 800Notes in the ''Debt Collection Calls'' forum is a thread titled ''Fake payday loan collection scams - Please list new numbers here [2]''. My notes and advice on the payday loan collection thugs, updated Oct 2011, can be seen on the lead page.

Sitting there wishing won't stop collection calls. Anyone at your workplace can revoke permission to call an alleged debtor. It should also be made clear that such calls are never ''personal'' in the sense that they were invited or easy to control. Collectors love calling workplaces to create undue anxiety.

Meanwhile, if you're the target you are in the best position to limit or ban all future calls in the dispute letter you should draft.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

} ''So why are these people calling?''

Because scam callers usually don't get jailed for ignoring DNC. If you fail to file complaints or find a way to sue the callers themselves, the abuses will continue.

You might also be aware that you've heard enough to hose this sham collector in court if it has a domestic address. A fake collector from South Asia is pretty much out of reach. Either way their empty threats of arrest, imprisonment, lawsuit filing, and/or asset seizure violate federal and state laws.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

On 800Notes in the ''Debt Collection Calls'' forum is a thread titled ''Fake payday loan collection scams - Please list new numbers here [2]''. My notes and advice on the payday loan collection thugs, updated Oct 2011, can be seen on the lead page.

This may be the usual dirty debt collector within the U.S. or a fake collector from overseas. Either way their empty threats of arrest, imprisonment, lawsuit filing, and/or asset seizure violate federal and state laws. Try to get a business name and share it with the readers. By federal law this name cannot be withheld.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

On 800Notes in the ''Debt Collection Calls'' forum is a thread titled ''Fake payday loan collection scams - Please list new numbers here [2]''. My notes and advice on the payday loan collection thugs, updated Oct 2011, can be seen on the lead page.

Ed, please .... These credit reprice scammers repeatedly blast any phone number with a pulse. There IS no ''relationship'', established or otherwise.

Diana: The FTC has in fact been shuttering ''Rachel'' call centers for the past couple of years. The criminals make themselves hard to catch and punish and tend to breed like rats. The civil actions cannot happen by themselves. We have to keep pouring on the complaints to the correct desks, mainly at the FTC and attorneys general.

Exercise a little curiosity. We have almost two votes here for Allied Interstate, a debt collector. The biz name in the call log above currently links to a mere 267 phone numbers which may be associated. This may suggest that ''block 'em, ignore 'em'' will not be a sound defense strategy.

Allied Interstate is a major violator of the FDCPA and in the top five most rotten collectors in terms of FTC civil penalties. Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

} "We are on the do not call list"

How nice for you. This has what to do with debt collection?

You think somehow going unlisted will shield you from a trashy caller using an obviously spoofed number which is not NANP compliant?

Figure it out .... The number is not NANP compliant and alternates between two digits. Looks like another stupid spoof number.

Hey Seymour, will you likely be better off shutting your piehole and not spamming every other day about Syria?

Thanks for not telling the readers who "they" are and why they "are bad news".

Who are "they", please?

Michelle: A lawbreaking debt collector places calls two hours past the default daily cutoff. Maybe when you're through fuming where the call source will never see it you can start work on a lawsuit to pay you for the trouble. Document all calls and CID carefully and record clean phone audio if possible.

A ''not me'' case like NorCal Granny I always recommend putting the agency on notice, just as you would if you were the target and the debt claim was invalid. Send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

This collection agency I believe once used the name ''United States Credit Bureau'' before rebranding to one of those ambiguous letter sets which businesses insist means nothing once it's changed.

Any news about a spammer's constant reappearance?

More likely trying to imply a prior business relationship and therefore an excuse to call.

See this report from twelve minutes prior: (8884187235) whocalled.us

In mid-January 2012 I updated the InfoCision thread I'd mentioned here before. There you will find a detailed account of how I made good on my own advice. To date, my phones remain silent while others continue to report nagging calls about this firm's many so-called ''charity'' clients.

(9018819984) whocalled.us

While nothing in life (except for death) is guaranteed, I have done the one thing which gives me leverage over this most irritating commercial fundraiser. It demands little effort for a lasting gain. The ''block and ignore'' crowd does not enjoy this satisfaction.

If ''they keep calling'', it's because you keep doing nothing, or else nothing effective. Coming back here repeatedly to spew illiterate rants under multiple aliases (''Hector'', ''Viola'', ''Samatha'') is under the ''not effective'' column. Ditto for insisting that others should decide for you which legally placed calls are unwanted and swoop in to solve your problems.

Those who blame the whole of Congress, the President, and ''da gubmint'' for unwanted calls have paid zero attention to the recent actions they have all taken to contain the problem of scam callers. In the past couple of years, several credit reprice scammers have been run out of business by the FTC based on a mass of complaints to themselves, attorneys general, and consumer groups.

Probably more could be disabled by now, but for the lethargy of certain cranks who think that every problem is for someone else to help solve. Regulators cannot operate in a vacuum, yet are expected by some to run like guard dogs to instantly attack whatever has inconvenienced people who will not do *their* civic duty to report illegal junk calls.

Why are you not paying attention to the rules *you agreed to* when you registered your numbers?

ftc.gov
See items 28 through 32 in particular.

Please see my response in another PRA thread.
(4122821422) whocalled.us

Ramona is correct. PRA has a ridiculous volume of phone numbers to throw at your few. The experience of ''Amazed'' is very typical when facing a chronic lawbreaker like Portfolio Recovery. The reps will insist you're a liar until you magically produce the alleged debtor and help them score commissions. Thus verbal demands to stop calling are futile.

To a ''not me'' case I always recommend putting the agency on notice, just as you would if you were the target and the debt claim was invalid. Send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Clearly not "everyone" has reported Comcast. One call center can have multiple clients.

If the collection agency is domestic, you should be able to hose it in court for an annoying call pattern and making false claims.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

JC: As I'm sure you're aware, a debt collector must disclose his employer's name on demand, no matter who is asking. You're obviously way ahead of most people in considering your options and gathering evidence.

It is not the FDCPA which governs your ability to record phone conversations, but you are correct that living in a ''single party consent'' state gives you a great opportunity to add leverage to a legal claim. Cases which attract media attention and/or high damage awards tend to include rather damning audio files.

Debt collectors must answer to privacy regs within the collections laws, hence their obfuscation in messages and demands for identifying data in live calls. It's about the only consistently followed rule, as (in my view) being shadowy works in their favor to make call targets anxious.

However, an agency rep must disclose a business name on demand, no matter who is asking, else violate federal law. ''Rude and downright nasty'' behavior is also violative if it rises to being abusive.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

A ''personal business matter'' is nearly always debt collection. This secrecy is a tiptoe around the privacy mandate within federal and state collection laws. In a live call, the reps are required to give up a business name on demand.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

I'm sure you can answer your own question since the owner of "Reliable Laptop Repair in Woodland Hills" thinks he got a great deal on SEO, but got you and your stupid fake reverse directory spam instead.

While I stand behind my maxim "Doing nothing changes nothing", I'm not in a throat-jumping mood today and in fact sympathize with the frustration of scam callers who go out of their way to hide their origins. Jumping off at four rings is just at the border of what the FCC considers ''call abandonment'', which is preferably kept below a minor percentage of all predictive-dialed calls.

business.ftc.gov

Meanwhile, there is a fellow who has been working hard over the past few months to disentangle the mess this cabal of security system hawking has become. The layers of fraud and lawbreaking are staggering, and none of this activity is going away by itself. It will take a steady flow of complaints and dedicated sleuthing to see that we are not having the same confused conversations a year hence.

stoptomwithhomeprotection.wordpress.com

} ''Isn't it illegal for a robocaller to hold the line like that?''

Here's the FCC rule, Linda:

''Autodialers that deliver a recorded message must release the called party’s telephone line within five seconds of the time that the calling system receives notification that the called party’s line has hung up. In some areas, you could experience a delay before you can get a dial tone again. Your local telephone company can tell you if there is a delay in your area.''

fcc.gov

I had a similar issue with a debt collector some months ago, at a time when I needed the line clear for medical callers. I can't seek legal relief, but I will be happy to include the incident as a ''by the way'' note in my FDCPA suit for the agency's other offenses.

} ''said she would introduce herself if I was''

Hmph ... Some bargain. The rep was required to give you her name or an alias in any case. That and give you a reason for calling without actually mentioning debt.

Spammer Dan is back with more fake reverse directory spam after almost eight months of sabbatical. I wonder if ''Wave Connects in Del Mar'' is aware that they've wasted their money on this pathetic SEO plan.

By the way, a few weeks ago Asset Acceptance joined the growing list of debt collectors fined by the FTC for consistently unlawful behavior. They took the Number Two slot in highest damage awards. The civil complaint is a virtual catalog of the most common dirty tricks junk debt buyers commit.

Under FTC Settlement, Debt Buyer Agrees to Pay $2.5 Million for Alleged Consumer Deception
ftc.gov

B: Blocking and ignoring collector calls does not ''handle'' them any more than a blindfold can ''handle'' a mugger in the alley. You can in fact ''get them to stop calling'', which you would know if you'd taken my advice that's been here for almost a half year. What's more, your trigger finger on the ''delete'' switch could be losing you a tidy payout from potential violations in those phone calls from a collector well known for lawbreaking tactics.

Ann has a solid violation already, receiving at least one call outside the hours specified by the FDCPA. Armitage112 got the very typical collector arrogance, always ready to blame the victim for problems their employers caused.

It should be noted that as non-sales callers, all debt collectors are exempt from filtering out any numbers registered on a no-call list. The FTC never kept this a secret, and practically begged you all to read the linked FAQ at registration time.

ftc.gov

Any chance you could share a business name with the readers? This hostile collector is more a job for the FTC and your attorney general, if you can't pin down a domestic address to serve a summons for a harassing call pattern. Collection calls to a workplace must end the moment it becomes known, from any person there, that they are unwanted. That and other useful federal laws are part of the FDCPA. See more via the link.

ftc.gov

Wow, I haven't seen a fake reverse directory spam here for thirteen months. Don't you cheap SEO spammers ever learn? No one here cares if ''this the phone number of Joan E Childs, LCSW'' unless suspicious and junky calls are coming from the said ''phone number of Joan E Childs''.

I will guess the full agency name to be Mercantile Adjustment Bureau. The British bot lady in some form is used by several collection agencies. I've speculated it's to help instill fear of authority, like you're back in school with some schoolmarm and her yardstick.

''Wrong number'' often translates to ''lying deadbeat'' in the debt collector playbook. You should not rely on any verbal demands, which cannot be proven as received. If you're not their intended target, you must tell them in writing. It's called a "cease-comm" for short, and it is best sent USPS Certified with a return card. They must comply with your written notice or face your wrath in court.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Define ''nasty'', Reynolds. You don't owe debt collectors any answers, but they owe you a minimum of civil behavior. If you're badly treated, they also owe you a payout in court. It's likely the agency had no need to hassle you, but pretended your son went missing so that you would help it create the desired false shame.

You can demand on paper that you never be contacted again. Your son needs to take control when PRA gets around to dunning him, sending a proper dispute letter which includes instruction that some or all calls are inconvenient and that no other family members are to be disturbed.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

SJ: Your DRS encounter was worse than realized. Historically, many otherwise lawbreaking debt collectors have shown a remarkable aversion to creating privacy violations. They won't dare breathe a wrong word to the wrong person, even if that means breaking other laws to keep a tight lid on account discussion. Such is the case here.

Your stubborn rep was required by federal law to give up a business name on demand, even if you've not identified yourself. Her gruff refusal denied you the means to exercise your FDCPA rights, and could be seen as abusive. A call pattern working out to an average of four per day would break my comfort zone and be painted as ''annoying or harassing'', per the FDCPA language. I would say you have the start of a decent lawsuit.

the federal rules again:
ftc.gov

Debrah: A mysterious ''business matter'' is nearly always debt collection. BCR can't tell you even that much until you are identified as the targeted debtor. Your verbal demands to stop the calls will never stick.

If this agency thinks you owe something, be sure to respond on real paper to its federally required dunning letter with a dispute and validation request, adding that you either restrict or revoke consent to call again. Given the industry's documented need to break laws to get at your assets, you should dispute even if you agree slightly with its claim.

If the account is not legally collectable, or it's simply not you they want, you're free to send a full cease-comm, cutting off all contact. Send all notices via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft them. Pay close attention to all communication and document it well. If those contacts yield legal violations, you may collect from *them* through a judge or arbitrator.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

No one else reading this page can ''please make it stop''. Your caller is not going to dutifully study random forum complaints and cannot magically determine which numbers should not be called based on anonymous comments. These forums are strictly for call recipients to share their findings. If you can provide a business name and/or details on the caller's stated purpose, you might get a more helpful response.

What violation? A call in the afternoon on a Sunday? Better read the FDCPA again, B.
ftc.gov

If that's all you have, you'll need the call to break state law. Lacking abuse from collection reps or an annoying pattern of calls, good luck in getting that prize from a local ''Mayberry'' judge.

Hmmm, I see the trouble in this thread started in April 2009 with that ninny ''Wyoming''. It's been wall-to-wall comments like ''stop calling'' and ''remove this number'' ever since. I hope you've all enjoyed the increase in junky calls from publicizing all those phone numbers you had meant to protect.

Now hear this: Your caller is not going to dutifully study random forum complaints and obey no-call orders based on anonymous comments. Your caller does not maintain this site or this web page. How you handle this depends on the type of caller and what's been said, which for the readers would have been very useful information to share. That is the function of a mystery caller site.

The magic phrase for sales callers is "Place this number *on* your Do Not Call list". Don't tell us, tell YOUR CALLER! Better still, find an address and send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card.

A registry which an entity is not required to access prior to calling will not be "indicative" of anything. The exemption has already been discussed in this thread.

Yep, that's classic 'anti Foti' language from a debt collector. Those absurd commands to ''stop listening if you're not the droid we're after'' and ''oops, since you listened too long you need to fess up'' are a widespread industry response to a muddy issue of privacy rights in the FDCPA.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Anonymous: Your inability to pay is not a defense. Forget your wallet a moment and make Focus prove you owe. Respond to its required dunning letter with a written dispute, as the FTC and consumer groups advise. You might want to sift those phone calls for anything violative, such as rudeness which rises to abuse or turning that post-dated check demand into a threat.

Lisa B was apparently the only one paying attention to my advice thirteen months ago: ''You must directly confront the collector on paper''. You also send your demands via USPS Certified with return card. The word she wanted was ''desist'', but really what you send is a ''cease-communication'' notice if you are not the target or you cannot be held liable for the debt claim.

By the way, it sounds like Lisa can start a nice lawsuit for deceptive practice if the ''AG office'' calls are from a debt collector. Doesn't matter if she owes or not. Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

You might try describing who is calling and what they want, for starters. Your report does little to help other readers or yourself. Also be aware of the exemptions to the federal DNC program.

ftc.gov

The fool can't decide whether to punish your hubby or your daughter, but of course you are the one being painted as unreasonable. That's debt collector logic for you. The threat of arrest was of course very illegal and worth a nice payout if you do find a domestic address to serve with a summons.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

LDP: In your place I would have replied to that dunning letter ''several weeks ago'' with a written dispute including the line ''calls are inconvenient''. NCO might now be in much bigger trouble, a thousand dollars' worth, for continued collection activity while failing to validate. Lacking that paper trail, you may still have a deceptive practice count, and maybe misrepresentation of a debt claim, but the more pedestrian consumer lawyers probably won't see their money in the case. The sooner you throw some Cert Mail at them the better.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

David: WCU has a strange bug. Anything past double quote marks will be rejected if your comment includes a URL. Try pairs of single quotes instead .....
''like this'' whocalled.us

Before anyone else says it, the DNC registry and the Telemarketing Sales Rule are of little concern to fraudsters who change numbers and locations like socks. The credit reprice scammers do get cornered and punished by the FTC, if slowly, when a critical mass of complaints is evident. Here's the latest bunch to get hammered just a week ago:

FTC Shuts Down Robocallers Who Claimed to Reduce Credit Card Interest Rates
ftc.gov

Have you tried getting off the phone and onto a paper trail? Send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one.

Hughey, as I mentioned in the comment right behind yours, the PRA rep was rightfully not at ease discussing a debt account with anyone who is not your wife. Technically under the FDCPA spouses can respond for each other when collectors call, but usually agencies fear a lawsuit too much to try testing that exemption.

Vague phrases such as ''important business matter'' and ''urgent personal business'' are common industry code for debt collection, meant to create a mild panic without actually triggering a privacy violation.

Stevens: You can send your own demands to DRS this week rather than wait for your AG to open his mail. To both you and Jennifer and any ''not me'' case I always recommend putting the agency on notice, just as you would if you were the target and the debt claim was invalid. Send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril.

Jennifer: You're both right and wrong. The FTC makes two demands of third party collectors which are frequently in conflict. A collector must make ''meaningful disclosure'' of its identity yet respect the privacy of whoever is named on a debt account. If you get a skip trace call for a stranger, the rep is not required to name his employer until asked. That is the most you can be told without making the agency vulnerable to a lawsuit.

Janice: High volume debt collectors are notoriously deaf to verbal requests. To a ''not me'' case I always recommend putting the agency on notice, just as you would if you were the target and the debt claim was invalid. Send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril.

Learn how to exercise your rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Debt collection agencies *encourage* hostile and illegal tactics, and their clients often look the other way. You have in your story plenty of FDCPA violations to hose your tormentor in court, provided the agency is domestic and not another fake payday loan thug from India or Pakistan. Would be nice if you'd share a business name with the readers, which by law you must be given on demand.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

JB: Technically the TCPA already bans a lot of autodialed and bot calls, but it's hard to sting a collection agency with a law aimed at sales calls. The worst actors understand ''wrong number'' to mean, ''I am in fact who you want or I'm covering for that person''.

To a ''not me'' case I always recommend putting the agency on notice, just as you would if you were the target and the debt claim was invalid. Send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril. If you do have a good case, that lawyer to ''get hold of these people'' is yours to hire on contingency.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Blocking and ignoring collection contact is a good way to attract a lawsuit. Documenting and recording those calls is a good way to help preserve your rights and lay the bricks for your own lawsuit if your rights are denied.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Conserve is another 'Buffalo Bully' debt collector which will gladly trample your rights in the name of ''debtor responsibility''. The Caller ID tags listed above will link to numerous related threads.

To a ''not me'' case like Meyer and Maria I always recommend putting the agency on notice, just as you would if you were the target and the debt claim was invalid. Send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril.

As for the grandson, skip trace calls to school kids are part of the baggage of giving them such devices. You can't make that flatly illegal since the collector cannot know for certain who will answer. However, collection calls to mobile phones violate FDCPA when placed knowingly. The child's legal guardian can send the same cease-comm notice as noted above and mention the type of phone involved.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

987: Something has already been ''done about these people'', several times over beyond the major civil actions described in the comment right behind yours. What's required is for more people to stop relying on verbal demands, get on a paper trail, and sue collectors which consistently violate their state and federal rights.

Jane: Try not to act surprised when your taunting wins you a harassment complaint. Collectors can be really that petty and cling to a double standard.

Randall: No doubt you have a call pattern meant to ''annoy or harass'', violating FDCPA. First get AI under a cease-comm notice, sent USPS Certified with return card. Wait out a week or so in case they feel like breaking your order. Then you can see if you want to press a case, which will hinge on how well you've kept records and how much grief you've been caused.

NA: The triple-B can be alright for PR damage but is toothless and often a payola scheme. Complaints to the FTC and attorneys general will get you further.

You don't ''have to tell companies'' anything. You may *want* to inform the many callers which are exempt from DNC list scrubbing that you would like their calls to cease.

The one useful comment on this caller is on 800Notes, describing a sales call for switching energy providers. The rep sounded belligerent besides. That of course would be violative for any registered number.

Your coworker and your sister have a good shot at hosing this collector in court, assuming it's really Shum's office calling and not some overseas PDL thug ''borrowing'' the firm's name. You may have clouded the issue by posing as the alleged debtor. Technically they discussed the debt with the wrong person, but I'm not sure you have that violation since you gave a false identity.

The crap about being arrested, that's something no one should hear from a debt collector. If they let five days pass from that first contact without sending your sister a dunning letter, rack another violation toward a $1K statutory award.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Sure, I can get behind the comment from ''Complaint Filer'', in particular the need to document violative calls thoroughly. I'd also agree that commercial fundraising adds another layer of deception and money-grubbing to ''charities'' which cannot seriously be called nonprofit enterprises. It's not hard to find the tax filings and watchdog reports of these various entities which think that shaking a coin can somehow makes them immune to fraud charges.

My advice has not changed any since my June 2011 comment in this thread. It may be worth noting that complaints under the DNC program merely add to a database. That pool of intel is useful when enforcers feel like kicking tail, but you cannot expect your one complaint to create urgency or inspire a response. This is why I suggest other complaint channels which may sooner attract human intervention, not to mention doing your own footwork and filing civil suits when possible.

What in God's name is a ''cemmont''? You Dyslexic Spammers and your false *comments* really need to go away now .... cement-heads ....

Ah, but the caller is not in Oregon. The credit reprice scammers and the security system hawkers have been using entire swaths of numbers in the northwest US for months now. Last year you may recall that numbers from tiny Errol, New Hampshire were the favorites.

Amy, I think the technical term for this is ''chutzpah''. These thieves ''qualify'' just fine for a lawsuit, if only they'll sit still long enough to get served.

Apologies ... I'm experiencing ''FAQ Fatigue'' on this site. Seems like every fifth non-spam comment lately has been some absurd variant of ''The DNC registry/government/President is useless''. Another unhealthy percentage of users think that either the telco carrier or the Numbering Plan Admin is the call source just because they are noted ''above the fold''. Possibly this site could use some design changes to reduce such confusion.

I did run this number through the other major caller forums before commenting. No good intel at all, just a reference to an unfamiliar telemarketing firm named COA. If you heard a human or canned voice tell you this number is related to that shooter's group, then I'll eat my crabby mood.

I still remember why we went unlisted and registered all the numbers in the first year of the federal program. We were being tortured weekly by all manner of hucksters desperate to imply they had a valid reason to make prerecorded cold calls. Now it's only the true scofflaws who pull that. Otherwise the phones have been much quieter.

This may be the usual dirty debt collector within the U.S. or a fake collector from overseas. Either way their empty threats of arrest, imprisonment, lawsuit filing, and/or asset seizure violate federal and state laws. Try to get a business name and share it with the readers. By federal law this name cannot be withheld.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

On 800Notes in the ''Debt Collection Calls'' forum is a thread titled ''Fake payday loan collection scams - Please list new numbers here [2]''. My notes and advice on the payday loan collection thugs, updated Oct 2011, can be seen on the lead page.

} ''I have told them several times NOT to call me''

Verbal demands will never stick. If you find the agency is within the US, you can revoke call permission via Certified Mail and prepare a lawsuit for the abuses.

} ''They have Indian accents and are out of California.''

They are more likely calling from India or Pakistan, spoofing or routing through some decoy number.

} ''I don't have any idea .... how they got my information''

If you've ever applied for a payday loan, you gave away your personal data like candy to an industry sector which is incapable of policing itself.

The ''personal business matter'' is most likely debt collection. The vague phrasing is part of an effort to avoid violating an alleged debtor's privacy.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Uh-huh .... Try hovering your cursor over the term ''NANPA'' above. Next, recognize that the DNC registry is not a magic shield to repel every unwanted call in creation. There are several exempted types of calls, something you agreed to when you registered. Scammers and criminals, of course, are not deterred by such niceties as civil laws. Maybe next time you'll educate yourself before firing a complaint here.

Q&A: The National Do Not Call Registry
ftc.gov

Angel: You don't need a valid debt or a derogatory trade line on your credit reports to be hassled by debt collectors. They call third parties to alleged debtors all the time for permitted skip tracing purposes, or often pretending it's a trace to annoy and shame an intended target whose location is already known.

The DNC registry is for telemarketers, meaning sales, meaning all debt collectors are exempt. This fact was not a secret when you registered your numbers. To a ''not me'' case I always recommend putting the agency on notice, just as you would if you were the target and the debt claim was invalid. Send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Ssssiiighh .... Black, try reading prior comments before you pose questions. Every one of yours has been addressed in this thread.

The Dyslexic Spammer strikes again, making false replies in abandoned and unused threads. One word in each comment is horribly misspelled on purpose. This has been going on here since at least Summer 2011, following an unclear agenda. The prior spam series came five weeks ago. Here's the start of the new batch from yesterday:

whocalled.us
whocalled.us
whocalled.us
whocalled.us

Would you kindly give us a name for "these people" and describe what the false charges are for?

Gypsy: Did you letter clearly raise a dispute? Did the second letter not fulfill the minimum standard (sadly a quite low standard) of validation? Only then has collection activity continued illegally. You can sue CMS yourself. Why you've not done so already is baffling if you've kept a good phone call log.

The term in the statute title is ''Collection Practices'', not ''Practices''. You cannot ''site'' a law, but you can ''cite'' one.

ftc.gov

SAJ: More than scary, it's illegal for a debt collector to blab about a debt account to anyone other than the alleged debtor, who can sue for relief under the FDCPA.

ftc.gov

In the words of the FTC, ''Charities are not covered by the requirements of the national registry''. Please find for us the language in the Telemarketing Sales Rule which says that a ''monetary request'' somehow changes this.

Bill: Another forum comment says this number is used by debt collection agency Allied Interstate. Might have been nice if you had helped identify it rather than stop at venting.

You don't need a valid debt or a derogatory trade line on your credit reports to be hassled by debt collectors. They call third parties to alleged debtors all the time for permitted skip tracing purposes, or often pretending it's a trace to annoy and shame an intended target whose location is already known. You may have inherited someone else's billing contact with that mobile phone you just obtained.

(8004876996) whocalled.us

If you find AI is behind that other number, their calls were way outside legal hours and can lay the grounds for a lawsuit.

Learn how to exercise your rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Cassandra: The security breach is made mostly through social engineering. The scammer cons the victim into dropping firewalls and facilitating external control. Attaching your name to a phone number is routine sleuthing for debt collectors, so I can't imagine these scammers find it more difficult. That is likely the most they can know ahead of time. A ruse like this depends on your faulty assumption that the caller already has more personal data.

Greystone Alliance is f/k/a Elite Recovery Services, another Mackinnon sweatshop and known lawbreaking Buffalo Bully. The female 'Brit-Bot' is used by several collection agencies, likely as part of an overall strategy of intimidation.

If you're a ''not me'' case you are unlikely to get satisfaction from a verbal ''shut up'' demand. Send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Granted, trashy sales callers are often reported to jump off the line like a fly dodging a swatter before a person can finish uttering a ''knock it off'' demand. Some of them first need to be mined for information in a feign of interest. I don't agree that success in such extraction is always difficult or rare, nor is there a one-size-fits-many approach across all categories of intrusive callers. I've never said "my way or the highway", only that I consider call blocking a last line of defense because my one number is easily outgunned by the many a given firm can point at it.

I would agree that a caller's obfuscation often tracks with its willingness to skirt various laws, with major exceptions. Surveyor reps, for example, are often commanded never to record messages. I suspect it's because the client is paying for interview time and not callback pleas. Many debt collectors are fearful of both messaging and clear Caller ID since it is too easy to commit privacy violations, which may haunt them as FDCPA suits and AG complaints.

I think being stingy with your personal data has been a large factor in avoiding junky calls. That sense of ''need to know basis'' is something we don't discuss nearly enough in these mystery caller forums. An invisible target attracts few arrows, something I've proven in the email realm by aliasing my address for each correspondent. That's much harder to pull off with residential phone numbers, which makes them high value currency to be guarded.

What many don't realize is that the ''established business relationship'' can be overcome. Under the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) you can revoke call permission anytime, whether you're still a paying customer or not.

business.ftc.gov

Absent any instruction or transaction from you, call permission expires eighteen months after your final payment if you discontinue doing business. The TSR helps you here as well with sales calls begging you to return.

In the case of service provider upsells, the calls could be from a disguised third party as easily as the provider. Both are commercial entities and neither are exempt from maintaining an internal no-call list. For stubborn types I would recommend making your protest via USPS Certified with return card.

Very stupid companies failing to honor such a proven request can be sued by the FTC and state officials. We citizens share that right of action, but for a private suit it's limited to a minimum of ''$50,000 or more in actual damages''. That's a lot of ''pain and suffering'' to have to prove in court.

Perry: The main problem is the credit reprice scammers are very slippery and hard to control. A legit business will take a ''no-call'' demand seriously, but these schemers yawn at laws and may be calling from outside the U.S. and spoofing numbers.

A mass of complaints to various channels has helped the FTC shutter several ''Heathers'' and ''Rachels'' in the past two years. In November one such scam firm in Atlanta was wrecked in federal court, and its principals face jail time, setting a long overdue example.

Woman found guilty in $25 million telemarketing scam
ajc.com

Jury Convicts Woman In $25 Million Nationwide Telemarketing Fraud Scheme
justice.gov


If you hope for more prompt human assistance, file complaints with the FTC and attorneys general. Individual action through a TCPA lawsuit would be a strong suggestion, if anyone manages to corner one of these scammers long enough.

Sure, Sara, the DNC is useless and it's all the President's fault. That must be why my phones have been 98% free of sales calls since we registered nine years ago. That must explain all the civil actions from the FTC shutting down violators in the past few years.

Nothing but ignorance and laziness explains not comprehending the rules *you agreed to* when you registered. The following URL links to the FTC FAQ page which the DNC site *twice* coaxed you to read. See items 28 through 32 in particular.

ftc.gov

Nothing has happened to the DNC registry. What did happen was you failed to understand the rules which the DNC site *twice* coaxed you to read and which *you agreed to* when you registered.

ftc.gov
See items 28 through 32 in particular.

Annoyed: Looking at past reports here, creating false shame and urgency is a running theme with this debt collection agency. This is a tough call to diagnose because there are more ''ifs'' than facts. Assuming Allied Data is trying to snow you, your ''Ms. Ellis'' is likely a house alias. The message might be canned and it implies you have no shelter under consumer laws such as the FDCPA. If you're certain of your position, lacking even a thinly disguised business credit card in your history, Allied has handed you a juicy violation with its remarkably clear lawsuit threat.

Other scenarios include some other thug spoofing an Allied Data number and/or a huge goofup within ADC. But in your place, and absent more details, my story would remain the same, that a call came from someone naming ADC as her employer and that my rights were abused. I would treat it fully like a consumer matter and expect their dunning letter to be sent by next Thursday. Within the usual 30 days I'd respond with the ol' dispute letter CMRR.

Meanwhile preserve and copy that Ellis message and document every word that passes between you and this agency. Log all calls and Caller ID, and record clean phone audio if possible. Never allow yourself to play victim. You have a business problem, not a moral crisis. (The spelling is ''attorney'', by the way.)

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Blocking and ignoring calls is not a strategy and does not kill the weed at its root. My parents tried that for years with persistent annoying callers. It took simple Certified Mailed cease-comm letters to finally shut them up and set legal traps which will cost them thousands in court if they are sprung.

Maybe instead of crowing about how you're not answering, someone could help the readers by providing a caller identity and/or a reason for the calls ..... which by the way is the main purpose of these forums. Other sites, where the users actually understand this concept, have reported something about health insurance sales. Probably there are plenty of TCPA violations for people to sue over. That relief won't happen while complaints remain unconstructive.

Could be the usual US lawbreaker or a fake collector from overseas. Try to get a business name and share it with the readers. By federal law this name cannot be withheld. Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

That's not the way it works. Many colection agencies shy from leaving phone messages because there is too much risk of creating a privacy violation. It's difficult to grill a machine for answers or money besides.

Blocking and ignoring is not a strategy and does not kill the weed at its root. You have options to silence your phone and defend your rights whether or not you are liable for debt.

ftc.gov

Joanne and many others: You don't need a valid debt or a derogatory trade line on your credit reports to be hassled by debt collectors. They call third parties to alleged debtors all the time for permitted skip tracing purposes, or often pretending it's a trace to annoy and shame an intended target whose location is already known. Runaway skip tracing is arguably the most common problem the debt industry creates.

To a ''not me'' case I always recommend putting the agency on notice, just as you would if you were the target and the debt claim was invalid. Send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril. This can also help pull the agency under the shadow of TCPA, which carries treble damages for ''willful'' violation.

Don't let chest-thumpers like ''Specialist'' from June 2009 fool you. Nine out of ten those skip trace calls are not accidents. The collection rep is not your best friend and not your financial advisor. A ''50% sale'' is a common offer across the industry, and no bargain for you when the agency paid maybe 08% of face value for the entire debt portfolio. Not to mention ''settlement'' offers have to be arranged with exacting care to keep scofflaw collectors from welching on their deals and/or reselling ''forgiven'' portions. What's more, collection agencies cannot simply park a bad trade line on your credit bureau reports the way a hunter sets a bear trap. When they pull, it must be for a good reason, and what they report must be accurate.

That rep's whole rant is straight from the industry songbook, in which the constant refrain is that everyone he talks to is a cheating liar deserving of punishment. Then suddenly he's your pal when you drop your healthy skepticism, handing over his phone extension to secure more commissions. He wants you to ask "How do I pay" before you demand "Prove I owe"! The chance to preserve your rights slides away quickly. Here's a place to learn how:

ftc.gov

Describing those threats would help while you try to extract a name. If they concern collection of debt, real or imagined and from a domestic agency, you do have options.

ftc.gov

Canned calls to a mobile device can be violative. That alone doesn't give you much of a case. Perhaps you could read the most relevant laws rather than rely on belief.

ftc.gov

Extremely obvious spoofed number pattern with an invalid area code, which is what Laurie mistook for a telco problem almost three years back. Any scammer could be using this or a patterned sequence like it.

Comments on other caller forums indicate the reps may claim to be from a name brand insurer, such as Allstate, Met Life, and State Farm. A comment in Aug 2009 links this number to a ''payphone at the Vail Village Inn Vail Colorado''. Someone in May 2010 claims to be from the call center and defends his job of lead generation for the insurers on dubious grounds, claiming ''We don't use the information illegally''. He prefaces with the contradictory remark, ''I wouldn't work for a telemarketing company if it was for sales.'' Another rep comes along in March 2011 and cops the same attitude.

Neither rep bothers to identify his employer, of course, and they think their calls are doing you a big fat favor. Personally I won't be told that lead generation is not the same as sales, nor will I accept any other flimsy excuse for not scrubbing the DNC registry.

A few of you on all the forum sites would make poor research assistants, not even caring to hover your cursor over the term ''NANPA'' near this page's header or wonder what it means, mainly that MCI Metro is the telco *carrier* and not the call source.

Now that you've practiced your no-call request here, Ms. Watkins, deliver it to the actual caller, which does not maintain this site or this web page.

A number change is an extreme and unnecessary response. To a ''not me'' case I always recommend putting the collection agency on notice, just as you would if you were the target and the debt claim was invalid. Send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril. This can also help pull the agency under the shadow of TCPA, which carries treble damages for ''willful'' violation.

Cassandra: There are variants on the fake Windows tech, but they all share non-English accents and a pitiful understanding of computers. It's always a great laugh when they reach a gear-head like yourself, or someone who runs Mac or Linux. The dumber ones claim to be from ''the Windows Corporation'' or something as implausible. 800Notes has a few good stories, including a pathetic email version from the ''Microsoft legal department''.

Often their goal is seizure and control of your machine, either to rip out sensitive data, or plant malware to ''rescue'' your machine from, or maybe both. They may claim to have a pile of complaints because your system is spewing spam, or else instruct the user to open a shell and look at perfectly innocuous system feedback and claim there is something dangerous happening. This is the PC equivalent of the crooked auto mechanic who squirts oil on your axle and wants $1600 to ''repair'' the non-damage.

They rely entirely on user ignorance, sadly abundant among ''appliance user'' PC owners. While the NSA may be logging our every keystroke and mouse gesture from San Francisco, MSFT is not running any constant emergency alert system and is surely not going to run a reverse tech support call center devoted to writing each of us a trouble ticket.

Rachel: Your caller is not going to dutifully study random forum complaints and cannot magically determine which numbers should not be called based on anonymous comments.

These forums are strictly for call recipients to share their findings. They are NOT direct or private channels to the phone bank boiler rooms we comment upon. If you can provide a business name and/or details on the caller's stated purpose, you might get a more helpful response. The magic phrase you want for salesmen is ''Place my number *on* your Do Not Call list''.

Fine, Ms. Shields, I will leave messages .... if I ever get your phone number and I have a reason to call. You've evidently ignored my comment right behind yours. Like Slater, you've also stupidly assumed that your caller is going to dutifully study random forum complaints and can magically determine which numbers should not be called based on forum comments.

The concept of number spoofing has apparently not made its acquaintance with you.

FCC on Caller ID and Spoofing
fcc.gov

There is a strange bug (or feature?) in this site's code which makes mixing URLs and quoted text problematic.

It's likely the calls are placed by a commercial fundraiser, such as Associated Community Services, Dial America, Harris, InfoCision, MDS, and TeleFund. Commercial fundraisers sneak in as Do-Not-Call exemptions but do not share the same protection as their clients. The FTC rules say: ''... if a third-party telemarketer is calling on behalf of a charity, a consumer may ask not to receive any more calls from, or on behalf of, that specific charity. If a third-party telemarketer calls again on behalf of that charity, the telemarketer may be subject to a fine of up to $16,000.''

Telemarketing Sales Rule
business.ftc.gov

There is a substantial thread on 800Notes for the return number. It's believed Dynamic Recovery Solutions holds the number, and from all the complaints they've been quite busy this month. I think you were trying to cross reference this number (210-239-0067) and forgot to edit your text clip. Other neighboring numbers reported: 210-239-0100, 972-865-4716

The canned British lady was reported several times. The 'Brit-bot' is used by several collection agencies. Possibly the recording is prepared by a different firm which provides voice talent for commercial phone systems.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Dragt, please make yourself stop. No one else reading this page can revoke consent to call on your behalf. Dumping the same plea on this site three times in three minutes and providing no new information for the readers is helping no one.

whocalled.us
whocalled.us

There are variations in how the credit reprice scam plays out, but Fred is essentially correct about the ruse and your best options for reporting the illegal behavior. Apart from placing your funding sources at risk, the other common purpose for ''Rachel'' or ''Heather'' to call is to collect your money in a big pile for the stated purpose of resolving a debt problem. Naturally only the collection part actually happens.

My notes on the scam from Summer 2010 can be found in the following threads:
(4029820479) whocalled.us
(8133557202) whocalled.us

A commentor on 800Notes says this is from Allied Interstate, one of the larger debt collection agencies and a chronic lawbreaker.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Bubba is correct but needs to ''learn the law'' himself. What many don't realize is that the ''established business relationship'' can be overcome. Under the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) you can revoke call permission anytime, whether you're still a paying customer or not.

business.ftc.gov

As for survey and political callers, they often maintain their own no-call lists and add numbers on request. Any which are made with a commercial purpose are dragged back to the umbrella of the DNC registry and the TSR.

It was my turn last week. Several calls came, most with absolutely nothing for Caller ID. The ''Richard Silver'' canned message was left repeatedly. The company name was never revealed until finally I spoke with their reps. They were hunting down a stranger who I believe may have once held my phone number years ago. I was assured the calls would stop. Because I know better, my cease-comm notice, sent USPS CMRR, is on the way.

Here is my transcript of the canned call:

''Hello, this is Richard Silver. Please press 'one' at any time during this message to be connected to a representative .. [beat] .. or please return my call at 1-866-318-6742. Again, this is Richard Silver. You could please return my call at 1-866-318-6742. Thank you.''

Okay, we won't call. We can't anyway since we don't have your mobile phone number.

These forums are strictly for call recipients to share their findings. They are NOT direct open channels to the phone bank boiler rooms we comment upon. Your caller is not going to dutifully study random forum complaints and cannot magically determine which numbers should not be called based on anonymous comments. If you can provide a business name and/or details on the caller's stated purpose, you might get a more helpful response.

Yeah, thanks so much for passing on that caller identity to the readers ....

You've done a good job of complaint filing thus far. This may be the usual dirty debt collector within the U.S. or a fake payday loan collector from overseas. Either way their empty threats of arrest, imprisonment, lawsuit filing, and/or asset seizure violate federal and state laws. Try to get a business name and share it with the readers. By federal law this name cannot be withheld.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

On 800Notes in the ''Debt Collection Calls'' forum is a thread titled ''Fake payday loan collection scams - Please list new numbers here [2]''. My notes and advice on the payday loan collection thugs, updated Oct 2011, can be seen on the lead page.

What a story, Lori. It's a pity you didn't identify Midland sooner. You could have shut them up with a cease-comm notice. That makes it easier to file suit if you have claims under TCPA or FDCPA.

useful federal laws
ftc.gov
the-dma.org

} "I'm on the do not call list and they aren't checking it."

Of course not. Criminals with an autodialer have no incentive to pay for access to the DNC registry.

Generally the most you can do with credit reprice scammers is file complaints with the FTC and attorneys general. Based on a mass of complaints, several such firms were killed by the FTC in 2010 and 2011. They breed like cockroaches and drive people daily to fill these forums with comments. A legit business will take a ''no-call'' demand seriously, but these schemers aren't interested in laws and may be calling from outside the U.S. and spoofing numbers.

If by a long shot you can nail down a physical U.S. address for your caller(s) or its HQ, then you might consider a lawsuit under TCPA and/or UCC and any relevant business regulations. Many appear to operate in phone scam capital Florida, and lately a flood of calls is coming through the Pacific Northwest, reportedly using entire ranges of defunct phone numbers.

Don't miss that you can notify ERS yourself that you want the calls ended. Send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card to hold them to it.

ftc.gov

Sure, I'd believe that. Think of the overhead saved by sending each scammer employee home with a disposable mobile phone. I've recently read reports about other scammers whose calls are marred by wind noise, evidently working *while driving*.

I'm also very fond of PhoneTray, Chuck, but I see call blocking as a last resort which does not kill the weed at its root. Some weeks ago I went ahead and sent a full cease-comm letter straight to Akron, via USPS Certified with return card. I had a few dozen choice words for their business practices and the layers of deception which can be found -- between the fraud inherent to some of their ''charity'' clients and the sheer profiteering of the firm which is hired to shake the donation cans. The extra kvetching was not a vital component, but my whole family has taken their noise for far too long.

The vital parts of the letter were the phone numbers to be protected, a summary of the calling activity I was protesting, a clear demand to cease the calls, and the twenty digit USPS tracking number associated with that mailing. My cease-comm was quite thorough, specifying that my numbers were to be added to a *master* no-call list, meant to apply to *all* present and future clients of InfoCision and any of its affiliates. It further stated an expectation that the no-call demand would be permanent and not be forgotten just in time for the next client's campaign.

The notice also requested a paper copy of the firm's no-call policy. It further demanded that any contact data of ours in their records is not to be shared, traded, sold, transferred, or otherwise passed along. In composition I did not reference any letter templates apart from my own. In fact, I worked for over three hours to be sure I would include all my grievances and all the ''gotchas'' I could think of. I did not stoop to cheap insults, nor did I angrily cite laws or make empty threats. It was plenty enough to describe what bothered me and what I wanted done to make me happy.

On the advice of the call center rep who one fine day was lucky enough to draw my response from the predictive dialer, the letter was sent to the attention of Steve Brubaker, the ''chief of staff''. Calls from InfoCision ended the day of that chat. Two months have passed and my phones were quiet while others in these caller forums continued to report calls about the same clients we were being pestered about.

That said, I trust this firm about as far as I could toss a deflated Zips football at InfoCision Stadium with both my arms in a sling. An apologetic cover letter, sounding mostly pre-cooked, came with the timely mailing of the requested no-call policy. It was, however, addressed not to the sender but the family member already on file, and not sent to the address I had specified. About 60% of the letter blathers about the company's so-diligent attention to legal compliance. The rest refers to regret that a ''call'' (singular) from the most recent client campaign may have inconvenienced us.

I'm still parsing its language, which is somewhat noncommittal about applying the request to all clients. My letter went to some trouble to describe an ongoing pattern of annoying calls running to the hundreds. I'm unconvinced my concerns were fully reviewed. Anyway, a few sheets of policy paper saves them $500 in a TCPA claim. Future calls will be converted into a ''donation'' to us at $1500 apiece.

Fun fact: In October 2010 the FTC hung Allied Interstate on the hook for $1.75 million, the third largest fine the debt industry has seen, for chronic violation of the FDCPA. They spent the rest of that year hammering people for debt with renewed vigor and the same old lawbreaking, to judge from the surge in complaints. I guess Allied execs figure they should pay their bill with your money instead of theirs.

Debt Collector Will Pay $1.75 Million to Settle FTC Charges [press release]
ftc.gov

Well, Barb, now you know it's a debt collector, a major pain using many numbers, and indeed one which has outsourced its call centers. The call pattern you report would be quite easy to portray as ''harassing and annoying'', therefore violating the FDCPA and probably your state collections law.

If you're the target you should have seen a required dunning letter weeks ago. Else the fiends want someone else and your number is somehow related to their skip tracing. You have a right to dispute debt claims and knock off the phone calls, and also sue them into submission if they won't comply with your demands. Be sure you make contact on paper, sent via USPS Certified with return card.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

''Nasty and mean'' enough to violate the FDCPA, maybe? Document your calls with care.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Spelling the name, Pentagroup Financial, as a single word may help your research. This is a debt collector, and not always a nice one. Dispute them on paper if you're the target, else send a cease-comm notice if they want some other soul or they can't legally make a judge help collect.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

I've seen this Century Credit is a/k/a Reliant Recovery, a junk debt collector with a poor lawbreaking reputation.

That said, you won't be getting any $1500 a call, not based on a verbal demand, and also not based on the rules you've misapplied. The DNC registry is for barring sales callers only. This fact was not kept secret from you when you registered your numbers. You may have been thinking of the treble damages under TCPA for ''knowing and willful'' calls to a mobile phone. TCPA is also aimed solely at sales calls, though with great care *some*, not all, ''not me'' litigants are able to sue collectors. If the rudeness from your snooty rep had elevated to abuse or name-calling, you would have a cause of action under FDCPA as well.

As stated, none of this litigation is going anyplace until you start a paper trail. Send the agency a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one.

further reading:
ftc.gov

No need for that drastic a measure, Kris. You do need to stop relying on verbal demands. Send the collection agency a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril.

You should be aware that, despite what certain vulture collectors will insinuate, no one is obligated to pay the debts of the deceased from their own pockets, except in that minority of cases where Community Property law applies to a surviving spouse or a joint account is at issue.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Might have been nice if you'd tried to identify ''these people'' or what they want, as opposed to whom. The other caller sites are pointing to another fake payday loan collector calling from outside the US. These thugs are very hostile and lawbreaking, and will say almost anything to scare money from you.

The usual response to such a runaway debt collector stateside is to send a cease-comm letter and file suit. If you find a valid US address, please do so. Fierce consumer lawyers will leap at the chance to run such a case on contingency. However, being mostly outside U.S. borders and having no discernable addresses, these particular criminals rarely make it possible for individuals to punish them.

- Submit complaints to the FTC and state attorneys general.
- Send word to the FBI via the Internet Crime Complaint Center:
ic3.gov
- The Secret Service might also like to hear from you, per its mandate to investigate all sorts of financial and electronic fraud:
secretservice.gov

Learn how to exercise your rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot gov. The more you know of illegal practices, the faster you will sniff out the fraudsters.
ftc.gov

EA, your DNC registration ''doesn't stop them'' because it's not meant to. DNC is for barring sales callers only. This fact was not kept secret from you when you registered your numbers twice over.

If you follow those links I placed in the comment right behind yours nine months ago, you will see the federal laws and words of advice which DO apply. I'm pretty sure you've already experienced a call pattern meant to "harass or annoy", one of the FDCPA prohibitions. It is also illegal to misrepresent the nature of a debt. You've chosen correct places to send your complaints, but don't sit there waiting for a rescue those offices cannot provide.

You should have seen a required dunning letter from Capio by now. Be sure to respond with a written dispute before your thirty days pass. The same letter can also carry your wish not to be contacted by phone at certain "inconvenient" hours or to revoke call permission entirely. No need to drag out your proof of payment for now. The burden of proof rests with your accuser. Send all letters via USPS Certified with return card.

Keep detailed call logs meanwhile. The more they violate laws, the hotter your case will be if you decide to spank them in court.

Marsha, what you ''feel they should know'' based on your non-response is not how it works. The collectors are no more clairvoyant than you. In theory, from their perspective, the alleged debtor could be hiding in your closet. Your number is attached to the debt account file somehow, so that's the number which gets loaded into the autodialer. Frankly you can't blame them for repeat calls until you finally respond to one, confirm the source, and fire off a cease-comm letter.

One more time, you all need to direct your demands at the source of your problem, and NOT a mystery caller website. Some of you mobile device users seem to be particularly dense on this issue and will evidently complain in the first site which hits in general search results on a given phone number, without bothering to actually examine what kind of site you've loaded.

How nice for you. Now would someone mind actually identifying this caller? It may turn out the caller is among the DNC exemptions.

Lauren, your callers are not going to dutifully study random forum complaints and cannot magically determine which numbers should not be called based on anonymous comments. They do not manage this site or this web page.

In any case, these are credit reprice scammers and they are not interested in your demands or your threats. Your ''Chammel 9 News [sic]'' is going to have the same problem Pat and Dog have discussed. The callers hide behind spoofed and defunct numbers and are usually two steps ahead of regulators. The most you can do usually is to file reports with the FTC and attorneys general. Based on a mass of complaints, several such firms were killed by the FTC in 2010 and 2011.

That should be ''expire shortly'', Shirley. It's the back end of an illegal canned call, usually delivered in a too-perky schoolmarm voice, trying to rope you into a credit reprice scam. This is also known as the famed ''Rachel'' and ''Heather'' style of call from the fictional ''Account Services''.

Generally the most you can do with credit reprice scammers is file complaints with the FTC and attorneys general. Based on a mass of complaints, several such firms were killed by the FTC in 2010 and 2011. They breed like cockroaches and drive people daily to fill these forums with comments. A legit business will take a ''no-call'' demand seriously, but these schemers aren't interested in laws and may be calling from outside the U.S. and spoofing numbers.

If by a long shot you can nail down a physical U.S. address for your caller(s) or its HQ, then you can consider a lawsuit under TCPA and/or UCC and any relevant business regulations. Many appear to operate in phone scam capital Florida, and lately a flood of calls is coming through the Pacific Northwest, reportedly using entire ranges of defunct phone numbers.

Eva and Tracy: Apparently I must repeat myself from late April 2011. Neither this page nor this site is managed by your sales callers. If you want action, you must take your complaints directly to the call source, identified here and in other active threads this week as Graven, Austin & Drake, a telemarketing firm in Colorado.

The magic phrase you want for sales calls is "Put me ON your Do Not Call list". Since this bunch appears rather stubborn, it might be wise to put your demands in ink and send them via USPS Certified with return card.

There is active enforcement against actual violators of the Telemarketing Sales Rule, the legal partner of the DNC registry. The registry is for telemarketers, meaning sales, meaning all surveyors are exempt. This fact was not kept secret from you when you registered your numbers.

You will need to take your complaints straight to the source of the calls and ask that your number(s) are added to an internal no-call list. This may have to be set to paper and sent via USPS Certified with return card, should the call center prove stubbornly deaf.

Elliotte: These forums are strictly for call recipients to share their findings. They are NOT direct open channels to the phone bank boiler rooms we comment upon. Your caller is not going to dutifully study random forum complaints and cannot magically determine which numbers should not be called based on anonymous comments.

It must also be noted that the DNC registry is not a sentry on duty and not a magic shield against every scammer, spoofer, or unwelcome caller in creation. It is a database and nothing more, which many companies are exempt from scrubbing before they place calls.

No one else reading this page can ''please stop this [sic] unknown calls''. These forums are strictly for call recipients to share their findings. They are NOT direct open channels to the phone bank boiler rooms we comment upon. If you can provide a business name and/or details on the caller's stated purpose, you might get a more helpful response.

Thanks for sharing. By the way, whoever you think your comment will reach isn't reading this.

Larry, your caller does not maintain this site or this web page. How you handle this depends on the type of caller and what's been said, which for the readers would have been very useful information to share. That is the function of a mystery caller site.

I had a similar experience when I went two years without any TV service. One learns to be more selective in exposure to media after such an absence.

You could always ring LTD yourself with a recorder rolling, hoping a rep will say something stupid and hand you a costly violation.

Kevin, how nice for you. However, the DNC registry has no bearing here. It is for telemarketers, meaning sales, meaning all debt collectors are exempt. This fact was not kept secret from you when you registered your numbers.

If you are receiving misdirected or abusive calls from a third party debt collector, you may find relief in the provisions of the FDCPA, which regulates collector behavior. Learn your rights and first response tactics at FTC-dot-gov. See also your state laws for additional support.

Wow, someone concurs with my advice for once. (seen here Sep 2011) I did send InfoCision my ''get lost'' letter some weeks ago, and demanded addition to the master ''no-call'' list per my own instructions. A hail of calls for the annual March of Dimes campaign prompted this action, but this one call center has been a major pain for a long time, representing dozens of clients.

So far, so quiet. The next calls I get from that place will cost them $1500 a pop when I sue for disobeying my orders. Not bad for a six dollar investment in a simple letter, but I'd be just as happy with slightly less wealth if they comply.

A verbal demand to shut up will not stick anyway. The dirty secret is that the calls are placed by a commercial fundraiser, such as Associated Community Services, Dial America, Donor Services Group, Harris, InfoCision, MDS, and TeleFund. March of Dimes has been a repeat client of InfoCision every Autumn, but this may not be an exclusive deal.

Still the calls are exempt from federal DNC under the charity status, even though such call centers are very much for-profit and pocket most of what these periodic campaigns collect. At times the ''charity'' client is itself a closet profit enterprise, compounding the deception. However, as commercial entities, these hired call centers are expected to honor an internal no-call list and add any number upon request. Break that order, the FTC declares, and ''the telemarketer may be subject to a fine of up to $16,000.'' They are also covered to a point by other regulations for telepests, so you can kvetch about abandoned calls, bot calls to mobile phones, and so on.

What else to do? File complaints with the FTC and attorneys general, and the charity group doing the hiring. When the boiler room calls, try getting on a master ''no-call'' list for all of that firm's charity clients. (See more discussion under this number: 9018819984 ) If a given commercial fundraiser seems deaf to your demands, and/or merely renews its pestering with the next campaign, turn up your volume on paper. Send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. It need not say more than to stop calling and writing whatever numbers and addresses you want protected. With InfoCision I would not wait, but shoot that letter out right away.

The person who must ''please stop this now'' is you. If you can pin down a business name and an address for your caller, send out a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril.

There is some confusion here over whether it's a commercial fundraiser or a debt collector. Each caller category answers to its own rules, the Telemarketing Sales Rule and TCPA for the former and the FDCPA for the latter.

Pike, your caller does not maintain this site or this web page. Time Warner, or whatever entity, cannot magically determine who you are or what your number is from a forum comment placed where they aren't looking anyway.

Testa, now that you've practiced your no-call request here, deliver it to the actual caller, which does not maintain this site or this web page. How you handle this depends on the type of caller and what's been said, which for the readers would have been very useful information to share. That is the function of a mystery caller site.

I'm looking at all the Caller ID tags up there which reference ''WCA'', an acronym for Worldwide Commerce Associates. This is a devious affiliate marketer which harvests your contact data AND your consent to be pestered by any huckster willing to trade in sucker lists. Possibly you have filled in a survey or applied for a store discount card or put your ink to some other seemingly innocent agreement which had WCA agreement language buried where you were meant to miss it.

The WCA problem is so bad they have an entire department and website devoted to ''compliance'' with demands for the calls and data mining to stop. Rather than rely on their ''opt-out'' mechanism, I would send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card, and demand that ''the buck stops here'' regarding the trade of your personal data to total strangers.

I'm looking at all the Caller ID tags up there which reference ''WCA'', an acronym for Worldwide Commerce Associates. This is a devious affiliate marketer which harvests your contact data AND your consent to be pestered by any huckster willing to trade in sucker lists. Possibly you have filled in a survey or applied for a store discount card or put your ink to some other seemingly innocent agreement which had WCA agreement language buried where you were meant to miss it.

The WCA problem is so bad they have an entire department and website devoted to ''compliance'' with demands for the calls and data mining to stop. Rather than rely on their ''opt-out'' mechanism, I would send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card, and demand that ''the buck stops here'' regarding the trade of your personal data to total strangers.

Annoyed: I'll take a guess your ''several requests'' were all verbal, which are about the same as never making them. Determine which commercial fundraiser is working your area, either directly from the caller or a state regulatory office. It's quite likely InfoCision in Akron, which has worked the AHA campaigns for years, but it may not be an exclusive deal.

Send the boiler room a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. Demand addition of your number(s) to its internal no-call list, and/or a master list for ALL its clients. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril.

There is no provision on WCU for a user to delete a comment unless it's made by a registered user. It is sadly too common for people to come rushing in here from a search engine hit and not bother to comprehend what a mystery caller site is and how it's best used. It is also too common among the same impatient types to hand out personal data carelessly, the sort of negligent habit which attracts unwanted calls in the first place.

Walker: What's stopping you from reporting, then? A faint comment here is hardly enough. File complaints with the FTC and attorneys general.

Mary Ann: Now that you've practiced your no-call request here, deliver it to the actual caller, which does not maintain this site or this web page.

The dirty secret is that many charity calls are placed by a commercial fundraiser, such as Associated Community Services, Dial America, Donor Services Group, Harris, InfoCision, MDS, and TeleFund. These non-sales calls are exempt from federal DNC, even though such call centers are very much for-profit and pocket most of what their periodic campaigns collect. At times the ''charity'' client is itself a closet profit enterprise, compounding the deception.

However, as commercial entities, these hired call centers are expected to honor an internal no-call list and add any number upon request. Break that order, the FTC declares, and ''the telemarketer may be subject to a fine of up to $16,000.'' They are also covered to a point by other regulations for telepests, so you can kvetch about abandoned calls, bot calls to mobile phones, and so on.

I pity them now, Linda! You've found that commercial fundraisers have this quaint notion that ''no-call'' demands should conveniently expire just before the next beggar call campaign. It's not clear which call center is using this number, but when you get a name and address, drop a cease-comm letter on their heads, sent USPS CMRR.

This is what I did to that industry gorilla InfoCision a few weeks back. I had demanded addition of my numbers to the master no-call list, since this one boiler room has called here for at least eight so-called charity groups. I also requested a copy of the company's do-not-call policy. I cited no laws to them, but their execs are aware they owe me either that policy or $500. Future calls are ''knowing and willful'', worth $1500 apiece. I haven't heard a peep since.

Criminals with sequential and predictive dialers don't need to ''get'' your number, merely place thousands of calls a day by brute force. The credit reprice scammers have absolutely none of your financial data, but hope to fool you into believing they have some affiliation with a trusted entity. Note the illogical and vague responses given to ''RMFL'' in his story. This is very typical of what happens when these scammers are challenged, at least those who don't simply curse at you and hang up.

File complaints with DNC, the FTC, and attorneys general. A mass of complaints have helped regulators choke off several credit reprice scammers in the past two years. Individual action through a TCPA lawsuit would be a strong suggestion, if anyone manages to corner one of these scammers long enough.

M: The DNC registry is for telemarketers, meaning sales, meaning all surveyors are exempt. This fact was not kept secret from you when you registered your numbers. The ''someone'' who must ''stop these calls'' is you. Someone kindly provided a business name and mailing address eleven months ago today, just a short hop down from your comment. If you confirm the data is current, you'd best send the call center a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The idea is to add your number to an internal no-call list, just as the rep explained to Ed, and have a means of proving your demand was received.

Please say you're joking. Rather than send WAM a proper dispute I should risk sending money, the thing they want most? I think my odds would be better at a rigged roulette wheel. Tell you what, if anyone in the Hanna family duns me, I'll send all the mail and calls to your house, since you have so much cash to burn on a known lawbreaker.

Guest / K8 / Calderon / 411logic / Santa / Smuggy / Who knows what next:

I fail to see how I am meant to raise a ''defense'' when I have no bloody idea what personal drama you're babbling about. You do realize that other people besides you and I can see new comments trail down the WCU home page, or that someone else may get a call from this number and find this page, right? 800Notes and WhoCallsMe also have a few comments on this VWA number, and they with their currently scant information are a lot more useful to people accused of debt than your puerile ranting here.

You're a fine one to complain about identity. So far you can't use the same alias twice. That makes you look like you have something to hide. Mine has remained constant. I try to stand behind what I write, and make corrections if I can't.

The fact that I can use ''collector lingo'' proves nothing apart from my having educated myself on the industry and its abuses. This came from years of study, and not a single strafing run on a search engine conducted during a coffee break. I chime in here on WCU strictly to help others if I can.

Here's what I had to say in another VWA thread. Please note the tone and posture is the polar opposite of what should be expected of someone employed by a lawbreaking debt collector. Please also note the comment date is exactly 25 months ago today -- long, long before you showed up.

(8008604892) whocalled.us

I'm going to suggest what I would in general, that if you have some problem with any debt collection agency, you need to take your dispute to its doorstep. You need to use its actual legal violations against it. What never works is emotional arguments and histrionics which have no bearing on a debt dispute. If you persist in exhibiting a reading comprehension problem or blindly pointing an accusing finger, I really cannot help you and I would ask that you think some more before you comment.

Chaz, your theme of caution is correct but your assertions are reckless and inaccurate. A debt collection agency is not a ''telemarketing mill''. Collections is not sales, therefore not ''marketing''. This is not a hair split, since the rules are different for each caller category.

Under federal law no days of the year are off limits for collection calls, absent a written cease-comm notice from the consumer. Your state law may say otherwise, but you cannot speak for all or ''most states''.

A credit report trade line vanishes after seven years, but one's contractual obligation for debt continues forever until a court orders otherwise. It is unlawful to sue to collect once the Statute of Limitations has run, and it is not a blanket ''five years''. That period ranges anywhere from three to fifteen years, per debt category and under state law.

Now, rather than guessing your way through legal compliance issues, try doing some homework, beginning at the FTC.
ftc.gov
ftc.gov

David, collection agencies have a daily thirteen hour window for phone calls under federal law. Your state law may be tougher. Rudeness and abuse are two different things. You'll have to carefully examine the collector's behavior if you want to build a legal case.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

I'd meant to say ''near impossible''. A private suit under TSR must claim at minimum ''$50,000 or more in actual damages''. That's more ''pain and suffering'' than most can prove in court.

business.ftc.gov

Sterr, ''a clear violation'' of the Telemarketing Sales Rule, the law to which the DNC registry links, will be easy to litigate for an attorney general or the FTC. For you as a lowly citizen it's impossible. The $16K capped fine is for TSR violation. You don't see any of that payout.

One more time, you need a claim under state law or TCPA to bring your own suit against a sales caller, not to mention a valid business name and US address to serve a summons. What's more, text messages don't have the weight of real paper and USPS Certified, so you may have a hard time proving your ''shut up'' demands were received.

Martin, your complaints add to a pool of intel which becomes useful to regulators and law enforcement. Reports to the FTC and attorneys general are certainly recommended. A mass of complaints helped the FTC cut down several credit reprice scammers in 2010 and 2011. This Autumn another such operation in Atlanta was busted and, for the first overdue time, its principals were headed for new homes at the Ironbar Hotel.

ajc.com
justice.gov

You cannot expect swift action or personal attention to your own problem. These scammers breed like rats and shift numbers and locations the way you might change your bed sheets.

Back to reality now, I'd meant to mention how to assert your rights as an alleged debtor, so you don't end up poorer and bamboozled. Start your homework at the FTC.
ftc.gov

Glowing reports about a debt collector from ''greatful'' [sic] debtors are never above suspicion. Moreso when those reports are so badly composed and/or allergic to capital letters. Seeing one in a mystery caller site is never a good sign. Let's say I believe this story, which I don't. The man has already identified his caller and had to obtain valid contact data to deal with them legally and make a payment. Therefore he had little reason to come running here to tell us what a good little debtor he was under a specific phone number, except to shill for the collection agency.

Several recent reports on Who Calls Me regarding Westpoint Management Group under this number (716-508-3534) paint a different and more common picture of a runaway junky collector pulling the same old abusive tactics and illegal threats. If we again indulge the fantasy of ''Mr. Greatful'', he has a fool for an attorney for not first disputing the collector's claims and accepting a crummy thermal paper fax transmission as ''validation''. A cut-rate ''settlement'' with an extortionist is no bargain. It's even possible Westpoint had reason to know the alleged debtor retained legal counsel but called him anyway, a federal violation.

Mind sharing with the class who "they" are?

Here's what *you* have to understand about what *they* are hearing in the call center. You said "not interested". You did not say to stop calling. You did not request the addition of your number to an internal no-call list. You did not secure a mailing address so you can follow up with a cease-comm notice, best sent via USPS Certified with return card.

If you are not specific about what you want, and end to the calls, it's assumed that with enough tries someone will get you "interested". At some call centers the reps are *ordered* not to accept a no-call demand unless it's phrased correctly. Thus, "take me off the list" is wrong. The caller may not have any target list to begin with. To remain in legal compliance, a sales caller must ADD your number to an internal list on request. Your name and address is not needed, only a number.

Much of this assumes the caller is actually concerned about staying legal and not just another offshore scam outfit. In such a case, our laws do no good and you'll have to fall back on less reliable blocking strategies.

I wish that some commentors understood that dumping the same hand-wringing message on AHA threads every other day (see prior post history below) is not doing a favor to anyone. Again I repeat that right in this same thread the most likely source of these beggar calls has been identified and there is good advice regarding how to handle these calls and stop them cold. You cannot sigh heavily and moan that ''all we can do is endure'' when a viable plan of action is already laid out where you can plainly find it.

whocalled.us (8883557209) 2011-12-29
whocalled.us (8772132767) 2011-12-30

The only thing you've ''figured out'' is how to spam this page with no clear agenda, except perhaps to distract readers from all the complaints about a lawbreaking debt collector.

CBCS, as reported in the threads linked to the Caller ID references above, is a debt collection agency. The DNC registry is for telemarketers, meaning sales, meaning all debt collectors are exempt. Your complaints were most likely misdirected.

Attorneys general and the FTC are valid complaint venues which help the public at large. But understand that you must confront collection agencies directly if you object to their ignorance of your privacy and consumer rights. You must also learn and comprehend those rights fully before you start charging ''harassment'' and ''fraud'' where there is none.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov. See also your state laws for additional support.
ftc.gov

A subsequent comment on the 800Notes page Barbara quoted related this number to Pinnacle Financial, a known lawbreaking debt collector.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Other, your verbal demands will never be obeyed since you cannot prove their receipt. See my advice from October.

I might add that relatives and "nearbys" of deceased persons are in no way obligated to pay a dead person's old debts. The only exceptions involve joint accounts or the rules of the few ''community property'' states. Debt collectors must wait in line like everyone else for a probate process or estate manager to do what is feasible. They can try playing violins and implying a false moral obligation, but this behavior edges them toward deceptive and illegal practice.

Mildred: Calls past that time violate federal law as well. What's likely is that AI uses a predictive dialer and needs staff available to receive calls whenever that dialer is active. Any canned content won't be on tape in this decade, but some form of digital storage.

Tammy, the presumption is that collectors don't know what kind of phone is being dialed. (Not that it's always hard to determine, but that's another argument.) The reps aren't dialing anyway, but a machine which has been fed account data, which might include a mobile number. The key, as I discussed in June, is notification from you which removes all excuses of ignorance.

Tracey: Your ''established business relationship'' (EBR) has not ended just because you've cancelled service. You will need to expressly revoke call consent if you don't want to wait eighteen months for the EBR to expire on its own. It may be wise to send a written cease-comm via USPS Certified with return card, so that there are no excuses for contacting you once it's received.

''411Logic'' and ''Santa'' make five aliases for the same person, for a consensus of one. Then confusing me for an officer of a debt collection agency, that's real ''educated''.

The rest of you who have some dispute with Vengroff Williams can try direct confrontation, on real Certified mail paper, rather than making juvenile remarks on a mystery caller forum. Learn your rights and first response tactics at FTC-dot-gov. See also your state laws for additional support.

ftc.gov

Because I can't resist .... Was it Prowl, Swoop, Ratchet, or Perceptor? Slingshot? Omega Supreme?

Good to see you again, Linda. You seemed absent from the site for several weeks until this Autumn. Do you have LTD pinned under a cease-comm notice or is this a new source of skip tracing irritation for you?

Errm .... "Same thing" as what? You opened this thread, do you mind sharing details?

What do the callers want and did you get a business name? That would be valuable intel to share with the readers.

If you can help identify ''them'' maybe you'll get a useful reply to your unfocused question.

Lyngklip & Associates spams mystery caller forums. Lyngklip & Associates can't be bothered to help identify a caller in this forum, one using a number which has absolutely no entries on any other caller site. It is by no means certain a debt collector has used this number.

Lyngklip & Associates tries to drive traffic to a site rife with spelling and grammatical errors and faulty links. Until this Autumn, Lyngklip's site advocated responding to collectors with ham-fisted letter templates, also containing spelling errors, which are likely to get alleged debtors sued faster. These have been hidden away in favor of a ''letter guide'' written the same year, again carrying clumsy errors and being somewhat self-contradictory. These are not people I want writing my legal briefs or sending simple letters to debt collectors anyone can learn to draft more wisely.

Learn your rights as an alleged debtor and your first response tactics at FTC-dot-gov. See also your state laws for additional support.
ftc.gov

Ms. Slater, now that you've practiced your no-call request here, deliver it to the actual caller, which does not maintain this site or this web page. How you handle this depends on the type of caller and what's been said, which for the readers would have been very useful information to share. That is the function of a mystery caller site. It may do you some good to slow down and review past comments to help you decide your next steps.

Rayne, blocking and ignoring collection calls is not a strategy, for the reason you've already identified. A determined collector has many phone numbers to throw at your one, and will just as often send dud Caller ID. You can in fact choke off the calls, and you would know how if you'd taken my advice placed here a mere three comments (and fourteen months) behind yours.

The main thing is to put the pesky collection agency on notice, making your demands on real paper, sent USPS Certified with return card. The approach differs depending on whether you are the alleged debtor or just someone netted in a skip trace. The more you argue with collectors verbally, the more you are seen as a liar and the calls will only continue until your dispute is put to a paper trail.

One more time, here are the federal industry rules. See also your state laws for additional support.
ftc.gov

Frank, no one with a sequential dialer needs to ''get'' your phone number. The variety of scams reported in this one thread over a single quarter of a year should suggest that the callers are dialing blindly and rotating their scams like crops.

See my entry in this thread from Nov 2010 and my reply to Bill under 240-210-7121
whocalled.us

See reply under 240-210-7121 whocalled.us

The current Charity Navigator rating is a lukewarm two of four stars, under the system revised three months ago. Let's not forget the suspect behavior of March of Dimes is multiplied by the commercial fundraisers it hires each year to pelt us with calls from rotating numbers.

Each Autumn our area is routinely swamped in ''MoD'' calls from InfoCision, the gorilla sized beggar firm in Akron. This season the calls are often abandoned, the ring patterns often too short for any human to respond, and when a human rep is finally caught, one hears the same tiresome misleading and scripted claim that stuffing envelopes to send to all your ''Dear Neighbors'' is somehow not the same as soliciting funds.

These non-sales calls are exempt from federal DNC list scrubbing, even though hired call centers are very much for-profit and pocket much of what their periodic campaigns collect. However, as commercial entities, the boiler rooms are expected to honor an internal no-call list and add any number upon request. Break that order, the FTC declares, and ''the telemarketer may be subject to a fine of up to $16,000.'' They are also covered to a point by other regulations for telepests, so you can kvetch about abandoned calls, bot calls to mobile phones, and so on.

Because I know very well a verbal ''shut up'' demand will either be ignored or conveniently forgotten by the next campaign, a cease-comm notice has been sent to InfoCision via USPS Certified with return card. My request was for all numbers affected to be placed on a master ''no call'' list, so that I cannot be disturbed about MoD, American Heart, American Lung, Saint Jude, and many other repeat can shakers.

See further discussion under this number: 9018819984

Riedmiller, I think half your problem with junky callers is that you will hand out your phone number any old place without considering where it may end up. No one else reading this page can ''Please take our number off'' anything. These forums are strictly for call recipients to share their findings. They are NOT direct open channels to the phone bank boiler rooms we comment upon. What's more, it is sheer stupidity to publicize a number you mean to protect where any data harvester can see it.

The source of these AHA calls and wiser strategies to defeat them have been discussed in this thread multiple times for over a year. If you'd taken three extra minutes and a couple of flicks at your scroll wheel, all of this would become evident. So let's make it even easier .....

InfoCision is a commercial fundraiser, arguably the biggest around, hired year upon year by dozens of name-brand charity clients, which themselves are often closet profit enterprises. Commercial fundraisers sneak in as Do-Not-Call exemptions but do not share the same protection as their clients. The FTC rules say: ''... if a third-party telemarketer is calling on behalf of a charity, a consumer may ask not to receive any more calls from, or on behalf of, that specific charity. If a third-party telemarketer calls again on behalf of that charity, the telemarketer may be subject to a fine of up to $16,000.''

Stubborn callers might play deaf to your demands. Send them a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril. The magic phrase in general is NOT ''take me off'', but ''place this number ON your Do Not Call list.''

Mary Ann: You're not welcome. You and Ms. Kampfe clearly don't understand what a mystery caller site is for. No one else reading this page can ''please block'' or ''remove your name''. These forums are strictly for call recipients to share their findings. They are NOT direct open channels to the phone bank boiler rooms we comment upon. (Same goes for your plea on 8668842839)

What you have is likely a commercial fundraiser. It may yet be Donor Services Group as reported last year, as they tend to be rehired annually by their charity clients, which themselves are often closet profit enterprises. Commercial fundraisers sneak in as Do-Not-Call exemptions but do not share the same protection as their clients. The FTC rules say: ''... if a third-party telemarketer is calling on behalf of a charity, a consumer may ask not to receive any more calls from, or on behalf of, that specific charity. If a third-party telemarketer calls again on behalf of that charity, the telemarketer may be subject to a fine of up to $16,000.''

Stubborn callers might play deaf to your demands. Send them a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril.

Reports on 800Notes point to another credit reprice scammer. These are very hard for an individual to isolate and sue. The best you can do is file complaints with the FTC and attorneys general. The FTC has in fact put the clamps on several ''Heathers'' and ''Rachels'' in the past couple of years. It will take time and a critical mass of complaints to shut down more.

I'd agree on two points, that verbal demands with the worst phone pests are a waste of breath, and that running here to complain with no details to offer is even less useful. By far the majority of callers which attract complaints are either exempt from DNC list scrubbing or simply don't care what any law says. That's what makes it so critical to turn down the emotion and sharpen one's observation. WE have to carry the load, do the homework, and collect information, not just bellow skyward and wish for a rescuer.

LMA's vote of confidence is appreciated, as I usually find stones and tomatoes thrown at me on this site. It's true I have a helpful streak, but I caution that I can be very IMpatient with willful ignorance.

This week there has been a growing debate on Primerica and its suspect practices on fellow mystery caller sites 800Notes and WhoCallsMe. The thread for this phone number on WCM has become a battleground for Ray Anchetta, representing the insurance firm, and the administrator of the two sites, Julia Forte. Anchetta objects to certain user-submitted comments, mostly on the stated grounds that he personally does not recognize those people as being call recipients and that he disagrees with their statements.

Ms. Forte yesterday reported getting a threat of some broad online smear campaign from Anchetta, which would be executed for noncompliance with his ludicrous demands to excise certain negative Primerica comments. This ''ransom'' was meant to be paid by 16:00 yesterday. It is not the policy of those sites to remove content every time someone objects, offers payment, waves an angry fist, or starts talking lawsuit. Deletion only occurs if a comment is found breaking the Service Terms, which give broad latitude to conflicts of opinion so long as they remain civil.

Today at about 10:15 EST both sites went dark. This remains so 55 minutes later as I write. We may have another tiresome Service Denial slam in progress. If so, it's not the first time this year someone felt a need to defend a fraudulent business model by trying to silence detractors through DDoS attacks on either site.

What amazes me always is how hard certain companies will work at deploying a hostile strike force of reputation repair, rather than put that energy toward resolving the core problems and reforming their own processes if needed.

This may be the usual dirty debt collector within the U.S. or a fake collector from overseas. Either way their empty threats of arrest, imprisonment, lawsuit filing, and/or asset seizure violate federal and state laws. Try to get a business name and share it with the readers. By federal law this name cannot be withheld.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

On 800Notes in the ''Debt Collection Calls'' forum is a thread titled ''Fake payday loan collection scams - Please list new numbers here [2]''. My notes and advice on the payday loan collection thugs, updated Oct 2011, can be seen on the lead page.

If your employer is impatient with these nasty calls, make it clear that they are in no way ''personal'' calls you have invited or can easily control, and that they in fact have broken federal law with their ''going legal'' threats and not ceasing contact once you gave notice of retaining legal counsel.

The name you've carelessly cribbed from the above NANPA reference is ''Verizon'', not ''Version''. If you'd bothered to wonder what NANPA is for, you would recognize that Verizon is the carrier, NOT the source of these calls.

The CID tag of ''New Co'' gives us something getter for a clue. This is a cryptic name associated with a horde of recent sales callers on behalf of security system dealers, ones which have been bending the laws regarding junky callers for a couple years now.

A new weblog went live this Autumn with a stated goal of ending this problem, which will be anything but easy.
stoptomwithhomeprotection.wordpress.com

I hope someone provides a business name for what obviously sounds like a debt collector. Those absurd commands to ''stop listening if you're not the droid we're after'' and ''oops, since you listened too long you need to fess up'' are a widespread and clumsy industry response to a muddy issue of privacy rights.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Attorneys general and the FTC are valid complaint venues which help the public good and may get the bad actors eventually fined and shut down. But understand that you must confront collection agencies directly if your goal is to halt or punish their mistreatment of your privacy and consumer rights.

If you are receiving repeated, misdirected, and/or abusive calls from a third party debt collector, you may find relief in the provisions of the FDCPA, the federal law which regulates collector behavior. Learn your rights at FTC-dot-gov. See also your state laws for additional support.

ftc.gov

Guess: Congratulations, ERS called you 36 minutes too soon per the FDCPA. Give them a few weeks to rack up more violations, then prepare to sue for the statutory $1K on their dime.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

I have to somewhat differ with Ray from two years ago, who cribbed half of his comment straight from the softsoaping comment from LERS itself which started this thread.

Attorneys general and the FTC are valid complaint venues which help the public good and may get the bad actors eventually fined and shut down. But understand that you must confront collection agencies directly if your goal is to halt or punish their mistreatment of your privacy and consumer rights. It is best if your demands are made on real paper, sent USPS Certified with return card.

Proceed with caution and get to know the FDCPA, which regulates industry behavior.
ftc.gov

Welcome to Zombie Debt Land, Kate. You are taking collection calls post-bankruptcy because you are dealing with a meat grinder industry which runs almost entirely on auto-pilot. BK filing is not going to magically update a debt collector's records, nor will it prevent the rogue agencies from pursuing those supposedly dead accounts.

Nonetheless, if LERS is chasing an account named in your discharge, ''Mister Rose'' is violating a court order and giving you a perfect excuse to hose him in court under FDCPA. If it's the same account attracting this past harassment, you should return to any records from that time for evidence of other violations. Document everything LERS does in detail from now on, if you have not already begun.

Calling you any place at that hour is perfectly legal skip tracing, JT. Of course, Redline is known to be capable of illegal practices. Send 'em a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

This may be the usual dirty debt collector within the U.S. or a fake collector from overseas. Either way their empty threats of arrest, imprisonment, lawsuit filing, and/or asset seizure violate federal and state laws. Try to get a business name and share it with the readers. By federal law this name cannot be withheld.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

On 800Notes in the ''Debt Collection Calls'' forum is a thread titled ''Fake payday loan collection scams - Please list new numbers here [2]''. My notes and advice on the payday loan collection thugs, updated Oct 2011, can be seen on the lead page.

This may be the usual dirty debt collector within the U.S. or a fake collector from overseas. Either way their empty threats of arrest, imprisonment, lawsuit filing, and/or asset seizure violate federal and state laws. Ditto for impersonating law enforcement or legal professionals. Try to get a business name and share it with the readers. By federal law this name cannot be withheld.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

On 800Notes in the ''Debt Collection Calls'' forum is a thread titled ''Fake payday loan collection scams - Please list new numbers here [2]''. My notes and advice on the payday loan collection thugs, updated Oct 2011, can be seen on the lead page.

Your threat may be working against ignorant junky callers, but your lawsuit would not. The $16K max penalty applies to DNC violations. Citizens have no private right of action. You would have to persuade a regulator to bring an action or have TCPA claims for a private action.

Why not ask your caller, who does not maintain this site or this web page. How you handle this depends on the type of caller and what's been said, which for the readers would have been very useful information to share.

Lonestar, Czarnecki, and Riddick: Please stop setting bad examples of how to use this site. These forums are strictly for call recipients to share their findings. They are NOT direct open channels to the phone bank boiler rooms we comment upon. The magic phrase you want for salesmen is ''Place my number *on* your Do Not Call list''. Unlike Mike, I would not rely on email or voice with a hostile caller but send my demands via USPS Certified with return card.

The problem I've seen with Rodale is more complex. In the past they've apparently been in trouble for dumping books and mags on people and then making payment demands and/or tossing the accounts to debt collectors. It may be a result of ''negative option marketing'', and your failure to stop the merchandise deliveries when you had the chance. You need to read those reply forms thoroughly before you sign on to anything.

Now, if you receive merchandise enirely on the sender's volition, a long established USPS regulation says it's yours as a gift. If you get hassled with collection calls, you may have state laws to help with Rodale and the FDCPA to help combat third party collectors. Related discussion is linked below, regarding the shifty Boardroom Inc. and its ''Bottom Line'' brand of publications.

debtorboards.com

Nancy: You don't need a valid debt or a derogatory trade line on your credit reports to be hassled by debt collectors. They call third parties to alleged debtors all the time for permitted skip tracing purposes, or often pretending it's a trace to annoy and shame an intended target whose location is already known. Runaway skip tracing is arguably the most common problem the debt industry creates.

The same privacy mandate makes collectors very shy around phone message recorders. The calls are likely to persist until you respond. If it's not you they want, send NCO a cease-comm notice via USPS CMRR.

Chav's comments from April 2010 are nearly all correct. The incorrect parts speak to a faulty reading of the laws. The *consumer* has 30 days by law dispute a debt on paper once that dunning letter arrives. The collection agency has NO set time limit to respond to the validation request. It could be three weeks or nine years or Doomsday. It's not uncommon for an agency to drop the matter quietly when your simple letter makes it plain that someone will have to do actual work to collect. The important thing there is the dispute letter sets a temporary sort of gag order. You cannot be contacted until your letter is answered with validation.

What constitutes validation is a fairly weak standard of proof, and it need not bear any signature in the case of credit card debt, in which your use of the account is taken as acceptance of its contract.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

I love when these clowns call law enforcement and government offices. This may be the usual dirty debt collector within the U.S. or a fake collector from overseas. Either way their empty threats of arrest, imprisonment, lawsuit filing, and/or asset seizure violate federal and state laws. Try to get a business name and share it with the readers. By federal law this name cannot be withheld.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

On 800Notes in the ''Debt Collection Calls'' forum is a thread titled ''Fake payday loan collection scams - Please list new numbers here [2]''. My notes and advice on the payday loan collection thugs, updated Oct 2011, can be seen on the lead page.

Blonde: No one else reading this page can ''put you on'' any list. These forums are strictly for call recipients to share their findings. They are NOT direct open channels to the phone bank boiler rooms we comment upon. Comcast, or whatever the call source, is not going to dutifully study online complaints and cannot magically determine which numbers should not be called based on anonymous comments.

Hmm, I could save even more money by properly disputing the junky kind of debt Redline peddles, then suing them later for their collections law violations.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Annoyed: It's just as I said here in April, you might have to turn up your volume on paper, sent to Sears or its warranty provider via USPS CMRR. Thereafter no excuse for future calls will fly. Once the mint green card returns, you can answer the next call(s) with a summons for TCPA violation.

What many don't realize is that the ''established business relationship'' callers like this wave in your face can be overcome. Under the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) you can revoke call permission anytime, whether you're still a paying customer or not.

business.ftc.gov

All: Please ignore the alias-stealing troll from a month ago. Cursing and cheap insults are not part of my writing style, much less trying to create false conflict while hiding behind other people's user handles like a coward.

You got it almost right, ValSobo. The call itself is exempt from DNC list scrubbing but the hired boiler room has to listen when you say ''can it''. Very stubborn fundraisers may need a written cease-comm sent USPS Certified with return card.

For those just tuning in .... It's likely the calls are placed by a commercial fundraiser, such as Associated Community Services, Dial America, Harris, InfoCision, MDS, and TeleFund. The FTC rules say: ''... if a third-party telemarketer is calling on behalf of a charity, a consumer may ask not to receive any more calls from, or on behalf of, that specific charity. If a third-party telemarketer calls again on behalf of that charity, the telemarketer may be subject to a fine of up to $16,000.''

SAS: I suggest you read my reply to you on the LERS thread like I told you three weeks ago. I've linked to material on the FDCPA, the federal law which should be made your new best friend.

Only you can say if red-penned circles indicate anger in your office. Impatient managers everywhere should be aware that debt collection calls are never ''personal'' in the sense that employees invite them. Hostile and lawbreaking collection agencies simply love to hassle workplaces (and family members and neighbors) to create false shame, usually while knowing quite well how to contact a person directly. This sham skip tracing practice itself is illegal. Therefore any punishment should be directed at the call sources and not their targets.

Curious thing, employers are given special mention in the FDCPA. They are implied to have power to revoke call consent to PoE on your behalf. When you get around to sending Dufek a written demand, you might add a not-so-gentle reminder that calls to the workplace were verbally barred on whatever date and time.

I think you're all done calling these clowns unless you do so with the intent of gathering more FDCPA violations to use in your defense. Certainly be prepared to document every syllable if more calls arrive.

heh .... Fat chance after the PR beating CLP took for its snowstorm response.

GC, or General Collection Services, *is* a debt collector, one known for illegal and deceptive practices. If it's shut down, it has a funny way of showing it. The BBB, meanwhile, is a toothless private club and often about as accurate as a three dollar watch.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Fact: LBA can and should be sued by anyone experiencing its extortionist collection tactics.
Fact: Criminals complain when their fraudulent business models are exposed.
Myth: LBA can prove every debt claim it has ever pursued.
Myth: LBA employees have engaged in a healthy debate in this thread.
Myth: ''Truth Bringer'', ''LOLing'', and ''Im Back'' are three different people.
Fact: Below is a link to the federal laws ''genuniely good'' LBA staffers have broken while regarding detractors as losers with no life.

ftc.gov

The ''criminals'' are most likely holed up in Akron, in the call center of fatcat commercial fundraiser InfoCision. They don't publicize a toll free number. Your no-call demand is best made on paper anyway, sent USPS CMRR.

Other fun facts are here: (9018819984) whocalled.us

Thomas: Now that you've practiced your no-call request here, deliver it to the actual caller, which does not maintain this site or this web page. How you handle this depends on the type of caller and what's been said, which for the readers would have been very useful information to share. That is the function of a mystery caller site.

I hope your phone number is disposable. It's not smart to slap it up where it can be harvested and passed to junky callers.

Oh, yes .... Donor Services Group is doing a great job of ''discrediting'' the ACLU -- ITS PAYING CLIENT -- no doubt through annoying call patterns and abandoned calls. Have a peek at all the state agency reports.

google.com

''Unlisted'', What ''T.Do'' said a mere three comments behind yours is correct. The following URL links to the FTC FAQ page which the DNC site *twice* coaxed you to read before you registered your numbers. See items 28 through 32.
ftc.gov

You cannot prove you made a verbal no-call request, so a stubborn caller may ignore it as happened to T.Do. Send the call center a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card, first to show how deadly serious you are and secondly to set up the pest for a possible TCPA lawsuit. Then file complaints with the FTC and attorneys general which document abandoned calls and annoying call patterns.

Mich: Clearly your caller will never obey a verbal no-call demand. The regulators would not be happy with the high volume of abandoned calls or the deceptive practices, and it seems the call center has gone from harassing to vindictive. In your place I'd document all calls and Caller ID carefully, and record clean phone audio of calls to them if possible. You need to connect a business name with a mailing address with the end goal of sending a cease-comm letter CMRR and working up a TCPA suit.

- further reading -

Telemarketing Sales Rule
business.ftc.gov

Telephone Consumer Protection Act
the-dma.org

Your caller does not maintain this site or this web page. How you handle this depends on the type of caller and what's been said, which for the readers would have been very useful information to share. That is the function of a mystery caller site.

No phone number can "belong" to NANPA. If you'd hovered your cursor over the acronym above or searched on your own you would know this.

No one else reading this page can ''get rid of'' anything for you. If you can provide a business name and/or details on the caller's stated purpose, you might get a more helpful response. My profile page lists a bunch of resources to help with different categories of unwanted callers.

Your family politics have no bearing on your problem with mystery callers. You can't stop what you can't identify. You will need more to go on than abandoned calls from some outfit which is hiding behind an eleven digit number.

I'd bet you can put ''American'' in front of the name reported, as in ACLJ. More notes linked below:
(8663488647) whocalled.us

No one else reading this page can ''please stop this person from calling''. These forums are strictly for call recipients to share their findings. They are NOT direct open channels to the phone bank boiler rooms we comment upon. If you can provide a business name and/or details on the caller's stated purpose, you might get a more helpful response.

SMS: Sorry I'm catching your reply two months later. Your ''someone'' advising you against written communication is only half correct, which I'll explain momentarily. You evidently did not study the FTC material I've referenced in this thread for the past year. Fine if you don't believe my words, but the regulators tell you the same thing: Get your exchange off the phone and onto a paper trail if you want a definitive end to the abuse.

The telephone is a debt collector's primary weapon. You are in close combat in a way; disarming your opponent is a priority. It is your right to restrict contact whether or not you are liable for debt, which brings us to a critical question you haven't answered. Is your name on some debt account or is LERS skip tracing for someone else?

As I've said prior, if your problem is the latter, you are perfectly safe to send a total cease-comm. If it's the former, then it is true that revoking all consent to contact you can paint a collector in a corner, leaving only litigation as a collection route. So the strategy is different, concentrating first on protecting your rights and assets. That's when you send a short written dispute, or ''debt validation letter''. This should be done within the month you are given by law after a dunning letter arrives.

Collectors must leave you and yours alone while they gather (or fail to prepare) your validation. In the same letter you can limit or ban all calls about that account, from that one collector, forever. Naturally you leave US Mail as an open channel. You can still be sued if the collector validates, but the simple measure of making one actually work for your money is often enough to discourage any further action. This is particularly true of junk debt buyers like LERS.

Just to be thorough here, if LERS thinks you owe something and you never got dunned promptly after your first phone contact, this violates the FDCPA. Proper collection letters come in the most nondescript envelopes possible. If you tossed one by accident more than a month ago, it's now too late to expect validation, but you should still send the dispute letter to quiet the phones and establish your dispute in print. If either side files suit, it may be that whoever has the better stack of papers wins.

As for my background, a decade ago I was persecuted by multiple lawbreaking collection agencies over a botched merchandise return. The retailer would not own its mistake and sold off the false debt once it was done hassling me. Back then I was totally ignorant of my rights and options. In hindsight, I might have won back four times the amount being claimed had I sued each punishing collector. Since then I have made it my business to study the debt industry and try to assist others who are in the dark like I once was.

Vicky: Ditto my advice to JACL, right behind your comment, from eight months ago. You will never get compliance from a verbal demand. You may as well ''take further action'' right now against commission-hungry collection reps. It may be wise to carefully document those calls. Rudeness can violate FDCPA if it takes the form of abuse or deception. (... and you've already been lied to about the repeat calls.)

It is furthermore not a given that the alleged debtor handed out your number as a decoy. As debt accounts are bundled and sold, their data can become corrupt, leading to all sorts of mixups. Sometimes a name is on an account already paid or too aged to reasonably pursue, but they chase it anyway.

Here's your starting place to learn the federal laws Pro Collect must obey:
ftc.gov

The DNC registry is for telemarketers, meaning sales, meaning all debt collectors are exempt. The following URL links to the FTC FAQ page which the DNC site *twice* coaxed you to read before you registered your numbers. See items 28 through 32.
ftc.gov

If you're through with your hissy fit, Sick, review the terms *you agreed to* when you registered your numbers with the DNC program. See items 28 through 32 in particular.
ftc.gov

The calls are placed by a large commercial fundraiser, very likely InfoCision in Akron. The calls are exempt from federal DNC, even though such call centers are very much for-profit and pocket most of what these periodic campaigns collect. However, as a commercial entity, InfoCision is expected to honor its own no-call list and add any number upon request. Break that order, the FTC declares, and ''the telemarketer may be subject to a fine of up to $16,000.''

A true North American exchange (format NXX) assigned to a person or business should not lead with a zero or a one.

area-codes.com
en.wikipedia.org
nanpa.com

Plug this number into 800Notes and you'll see on page six a long comment made by ''Jeff'' a few days before Hook's spam, which is plastering that thread as well. Jeff believes the caller is the nefarious Corporations For Character, which would neatly fit the profile of these ''police/fire fund'' calls. C4C has been named in a massive FTC lawsuit in May 2011 for similar call campaigns. My notes are in the thread below.

(6128085568) whocalled.us

Nothing in this windy spam from Le C. Hook Investigations should be construed as an honest offer, either. Two days later (19 Nov) Le C. Hook went on to spam this site with a much shorter promo eighteen times within six minutes. On the same two days, similar promo spam was slapped on 800Notes and WhoCallsMe, often multiple times in the same thread. The combined spam total for the two sites is at least thirty.

(Sample of the most recent one on WCU, pinned blindly to a political campaign call, exempt from DNC: whocalled.us)

The Hook Investigations spam has beed dropped without discrimination on several categories of callers. Some of them have easily found mailing addresses. Other threads already have useful ''investigative'' information, at no charge. Le C. Hook sometimes claims to be privy to ''numerous complaints'' about a number with *zero* activity on any caller site or complaint forum.

This ''buckshot theory'' school of marketing is typical of spammers who target readers of junky call sites. Usually it's a law firm looking for easy jobs like sending costly letters, implying it has some special power and distracting us away from consumer laws which anyone can use with a little study and a few dollars for the postman.

In keeping with this pattern, the great big offer from Le C. Hook is to send a templated cease-comm letter. Seriously? Oh, and they'll do it for almost *double* what it costs an individual in USPS fees. They claim some magic ability to do this for every kind of caller. Even the FTC can't keep up with all of the ever-slippery scam callers. This Hook is going to do a better job for ten bucks? To preserve your privacy he wants control and personal data handed to some spammer in Indiana?

Hook's website seems a little desperate, concentrating on pedestrian jobs. As in this thread they're making a heavy push for process service. If only their webmaster knew how to pluralize. This is from a large pull quote: ''When you need your paper's [sic] served''. But why hire out when you can order a ''manual'' to train at home for a ''rewarding .... very important professional position'' as a server, painting it as the easiest fat money you could make.

Conveniently absent is the fact that process servers are not delivering Xmas gifts. They only go where they are *really* not wanted. Last year we had polite temp Census workers threatened with knives, guns, attack dogs, and police calls. Going to doorsteps unannounced with a summons is somehow easier and safer than toting a simple survey form with advanced notice?

I would agree. Le C. Hook Investigations went on to spam this site another 17 times within six minutes. The same promo spam was slapped the same day on 800Notes and WhoCallsMe, often multiple times in the same thread.

He tested the waters three days prior with a circus poster sized spam claiming to know the identity of one of those ''police fund'' scammers and offering in pompous language to mail a cease-comm notice on your behalf for ten bucks. Wow, that's their big service to mystery call recipients? Something we can do ourselves for under $06 in USPS fees and no waiting for a middleman with no special powers?

These caller sites frequently attract people who are willing to ''investigate'' and share intel right on the page. One commentor from a week ago on 800Notes sounds sure the ''police'' caller is the nefarious Corporations For Character. Credit reprice scammers like those described in this thread are much harder to find and can change numbers and locations quickly. Somehow I doubt Le C. Hook has already pinned those crooks down before spamming here.

Also, as usual with these firms which spam for business regarding junky calls, there has been no regard for the type of caller. Many are scammers for credit repricing, security sales, pharmacies, and the like, which will take much more than ten dollars to corral. Others are the various exemptions from the DNC registry, which have their own differing procedures and regulations, and can all be silenced with a simple ''shut up'' letter.

But hey, if you want a spammer with a somewhat desperate web site (HookInvestigations.com) handling your pre-legal affairs and collecting your personal data to supposedly stop others from ruining your privacy, that will be your problem.

Guest / K8 / Calderon: Any chance you (and not ''u'') could select a single alias before you go about defaming someone on a mystery caller site?

Gary, the following URL links to the FTC FAQ page which the DNC site *twice* coaxed you to read before you registered your numbers. See items 28 through 32 in particular.
ftc.gov

Colegrove: Document those calls thoroughly the moment you disconnect, and record clean phone audio if possible. The right kind of ''rude and harassing'' over an illegitimate debt can get you paid probably a lot more than PRA is claiming in a FDCPA suit. Be sure your wife makes a proper written dispute when that required dunning letter arrives.

Larry: This has been my reference list on WCU for InfoCision:
whocalled.us

I would suspect a great majority of beggar calls we've endured come from the pride of Akron. One other research tool .... A charity call campaign may need clearance through some agency or regulator in your state, and many states make activity reports available online. Those reports will plainly match commercial fundraiser names with their client groups. They often reveal a specified period of weeks or months in which a group is permitted to solicit, sometimes tracking well with the observations on these call forums. Find those reports and you'll find one more desk to advise of your displeasure.

Larry, you might have meant ''debt collector'' where you use the term ''creditor''. That distinction matters since the FDCPA doesn't apply to original creditors. A cease-comm via CMRR is indeed the surest means of compelling silence if one is pelted with skip trace calls for strangers.

It should be noted that those who actually get dunned by a collector like PRA need instead to send a dispute letter, which can also restrict or ban all phone calls if PRA ever validates in response.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

You've set a good example, Seattle. Only extract and avoid giving information when collectors call. Documenting and recording calls is also a good idea. It's possible T&K is skip tracing for a stranger if you never see a dunning letter and you remain mystified a week after that first contact.

Homework on the federal collection laws:
ftc.gov

Are you sure the message is not for a single ruse, AP? For months I've been hearing a variant of the credit reprice scam in which a schoolmarm voice claims it ''relates to the financial stimulus'' and stupidly insists on a keypress response.

} ''why would any business be using a cell phone?''

Makes it simpler to dump the phone accounts when it's time to scurry away from complaints and regulators.

The Truth In Caller ID Act provides no private right of action, and does not prohibit all CID spoofing. It only covers fraudulent acts. You need to get off this kick of ''felony'' charges in every comment and actually read what the various laws say. It would also be helpful if when starting a thread you would give a business name or reason for calling or anything more useful than an unfocused rant.

whocalled.us
whocalled.us

See reply whocalled.us

Victim: While I promote litigation for real FDCPA violations, you won't get much payback from Caller ID problems. Debt collectors must in fact *not* reveal very much until they know the alleged debtor is on the line.

ftc.gov

FCRA does not cover collection activity, only *reporting* to credit bureaus, as its name should imply. You meant the FDCPA, which also prohibits all those bogus threats of arrest and litigation you cite.

Your advice to complain early and often to the correct desks is quite sound. If this ''Service'' has a US presence, everyone taking their calls should have a cause of action to sue for payback. If it's another fake payday loan thug, as the ''agitated'' rep suggests, our laws simply won't touch them. But they are good to learn in either case.

ftc.gov

The bad British accent lady, or a variant, is used by several collection agencies. You can't get upset by the lack of detail in a phone message beyond the typical stock phrase of ''important business matter''. The kind of disclosure you want belongs on paper, not a phone message which could violate your privacy and prompt you into suing Brachfeld.

Debt collection is not a ''scam'' to be safely ignored like a telemarketer, not when prolonged ignorance can lead to a court date. Wait for the dunning letter you should get soon (which will have several laughable misspellings) if your name is on some account. Otherwise Erica Lynn's dogs are skip tracing for someone else.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Who's Erica? She's the nominal CEO, but she's said to be dumb as a doorknocker and being quietly managed by her father the disbarred lawyer. Brachfeld can't sue on its own outside of Texas and California, two of the few states with collections laws which are stronger than FDCPA.

The ''customer service'' term is not loose, it's misapplied. Alleged debtors are not customers, they are asset sources, like cattle.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Allied Interstate is a known repeat lawbreaker, continuing its poor practices even in the face of a record FTC fine just over a year ago.

Debt Collector Will Pay $1.75 Million to Settle FTC Charges [press release]
ftc.gov

USDCO won't be back to read this, but rebuttal is needed. It is you who does ''not know the federal Laws as well'' as you portray. Some of your comments are correct, but you're mixing telemarketer expectations with debt collection, which share few parallel regulations.

} ''They cannot call you before ... after 8pm''

False. Under both the FDCPA and TCPA the default daily cutoff time for calls is 9PM/21:00 in a recipient's time zone.

} ''They also can not call you at work or call a business phone.''

False. Debt collectors can call any place they like for skip tracing. Workplaces have special mention in the FDCPA to revoke call consent.

} ''they must ... never call again when requested''

Yes they must, but often won't without a written cease-comm sent USPS CMRR. Debt collectors get to make repeat calls indefinitely if a person's response is thought to be faulty, a terrible flaw in the FDCPA.

} ''When they get a voice mail or message machine, they must cut the line and no message should ever be left''

Where did you get this myth? Debt collectors are in no way prohibited from leaving messages, only very restricted in what they can say. Privacy concerns provide such easy lawsuit triggers that many collection agencies voluntarily refrain from recording any message.

} ''they must announce who they are ... (etc)''

The FTC makes two demands of third party collectors which constantly conflict. Agencies must make ''meaningful disclosure'' of identity yet respect the privacy of whoever is named on a debt account. They are in big trouble if they say too much to the wrong person. Thus they are not broadly punished for being secretive on the phone. A live rep must divulge a personal or alias name and a business name *on request*, and even then you may not get any more than an obfuscating acronym.

Any other disclosure requires speaking to a positively identified alleged debtor. Case law has led to the wide adoption of those clumsy canned messages which try to make a person self-authenticate. Hence the absurd commands to ''stop listening if you're not the droid we're after''.

Complaints about violators to FTC and the AG are great, but don't stop there and wait for a rescue when your rights are denied. The FDCPA grants private right of action to sue for payback at no/low cost.

Start your homework from an official source:
ftc.gov

Glenn, let's be very clear that the credit reprice scammers are not going to ''rescue'' anything but the remaining money trapped in your bank accounts. Reports to the FTC and attorneys general are certainly recommended. A mass of complaints helped the FTC choke off several credit reprice scammers in 2010. A few weeks ago, another such operation in Atlanta was busted and, for the first overdue time, its principals are headed for new homes at the Ironbar Hotel.

ajc.com
justice.gov

For the remaining scammer cockroaches individual action through a TCPA lawsuit would be a strong suggestion, if anyone manages to corner one of these scammers long enough.

Credit Control is a third party debt collector, often linked to Vanthus Capital, plus the usual dirty tricks and illegal practices. This means the reps are not in ''customer service'', but in ''asset location''.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

No one else reading this page can ''make them stop calling''. These forums are strictly for call recipients to share their findings. They are NOT direct open channels to the phone bank boiler rooms we comment upon. It was furthermore very unwise to publish your phone number for every harvester to see. Enjoy the new flood of junky callers.

If you can provide a business name you might get a more helpful response. It's fairly common in a commercial telco account for the number on CID to be strictly for outbounds. A political ''barker''call is usually not seeking anyone's feedback anyway. I would try contacting the campaign managers for the candidate to see which call center(s) they've hired, and give all concerned a burning ear. A cease-comm notice to the boiler room may also be needed, sent via USPS Certified with return card.

Jane, you will never get compliance from a verbal demand. You can't prove you made it, and it makes you sound like a debtor with something to hide, therefore the rogue collector ignores it. Follow my advice from July if you want to regain control.

Self, they are calling registered numbers because laws do not matter to thieves. The DNC program has done wonders to cut down phone traffic -- within its scope -- from legitimate businesses. You expect somehow that career criminals with sequential dialers should also scrub the list?

Pile on the complaints also with the FTC and attorneys general. In 2010 the FTC shut down several credit reprice scammers based on a critical mass of complaints. The ''Heathers'' and ''Rachels'' breed and scatter like roaches, making them very hard to round up, and regulators cannot do this alone.

It sounds implausible that dinging mobile phones for pennies is the end game, not when these scammers are after large payouts from swindled consumers. Certainly the trafficking of active phone numbers is not to be ignored, but a bot dialer can work sequentially as easily as predictively.

Thanks for the spam, Maloney. Dani, could you provide a business name or at least what the callers want? In what ways are the calls ''harassing''?

Plenty of comments on 800Notes agree that ''GSA Application Services'' and its many variant names are to be avoided. It's telling that 800Notes threads on GSA were carpet-bombed by forum jammers this past summer. The ''Spam Alert'' can be seen in its news forum.

The term ''MoD'' in the list view above links to numerous other associated threads. It's very likely ''March of Dimes'', or more accurately a commercial fundraiser with MoD as a client, very likely to be major pain InfoCision.

Commercial fundraisers sneak in as Do-Not-Call exemptions but do not share the same protection as their clients. The FTC rules say: ''... if a third-party telemarketer is calling on behalf of a charity, a consumer may ask not to receive any more calls from, or on behalf of, that specific charity. If a third-party telemarketer calls again on behalf of that charity, the telemarketer may be subject to a fine of up to $16,000.''

I'm in a tiff with InfoCision right now over their daily MoD calls. They're getting a cease-comm letter this week, sent straight to Akron via USPS Certified with return card.

So, are you ranting in a fresh thread just in case someone shows up to complain? You don't see how silly your confusing tantrum looks right now in what's essentially an empty room. Could you even bother to name the entity you're commenting on?

Besides which, there were no ''idiots'' or any reports here when Ryan slapped up that cut/pasted circus poster.

The following URL links to the FTC FAQ page being quoted. See items 28 through 32 in particular.
ftc.gov

JCC may shy from leaving messages, and therefore creating potential costly privacy violations, if it's only skip tracing. Given the poor reputation of Jacobsen Christensen and Associates, it's likely you'll be handed other kinds of legal goofs to use against it.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Somehow I doubt these ''restraining orders'' are real. Certain fraudsters like to misuse this term in the context of a civil matter, hoping you'll be intimidated into playing their sick games.

This may be the usual dirty debt collector within the U.S. or a fake collector from overseas. Either way their empty threats of arrest, imprisonment, lawsuit filing, and/or asset seizure violate federal and state laws. Try to get a business name and share it with the readers. By federal law this name cannot be withheld.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

On 800Notes in the ''Debt Collection Calls'' forum is a thread titled ''Fake payday loan collection scams - Please list new numbers here [2]''. My notes and advice on the payday loan collection thugs, updated Oct 2011, can be seen on the lead page.

John, your lack of an account may not protect you. MCCS behaves like the worst third party junk debt collectors. You'll see quite a few comments here and elsewhere regarding what sounds like sloppy skip tracing. It's entirely possible for Macy's or CitiGroup to hand off accounts to a third party which illegally chooses to dress up like its client.

This may be the usual dirty debt collector within the U.S. or a fake collector from overseas. Either way their empty threats of arrest, imprisonment, lawsuit filing, and/or asset seizure violate federal and state laws. Try to get a business name and share it with the readers. By federal law this name cannot be withheld.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

On 800Notes in the ''Debt Collection Calls'' forum is a thread titled ''Fake payday loan collection scams - Please list new numbers here [2]''. My notes and advice on the payday loan collection thugs, updated Oct 2011, can be seen on the lead page.

The bogus name ''Federal Crime Investigation'' and the reps posing as law enforcement strongly suggest a PDL sham. The term, by the way, is spelled ''litigation'', which cannot be in progress for debt collection unless you are served with a summons and/or your name is attached to a civil docket number.

This may be the usual dirty debt collector within the U.S. or a fake collector from overseas. Either way their empty threats of arrest, imprisonment, lawsuit filing, and/or asset seizure violate federal and state laws. Try to get a business name and share it with the readers. By federal law this name cannot be withheld.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

On 800Notes in the ''Debt Collection Calls'' forum is a thread titled ''Fake payday loan collection scams - Please list new numbers here [2]''. My notes and advice on the payday loan collection thugs, updated Oct 2011, can be seen on the lead page.

Rebekah: You don't need a valid debt or a derogatory trade line on your credit reports to be hassled by debt collectors. They call third parties to alleged debtors all the time for permitted skip tracing purposes, or at times pretending it's a trace to annoy and shame the intended target.

The caller's identity and purpose has yet to be established here or on my other favorite mystery call sites.

You sure you want to ignore a potential thousand dollars in payback for receiving an illegal threat? Unless you have a fake payday loan creep from outside the US, start documenting those calls.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

''Anderson Law Firm'' has been a popular front name for the fake payday loan collectors this month. Their threats of arrest, imprisonment, lawsuit filing, and/or asset seizure violate federal and state laws.

On 800Notes in the ''Debt Collection Calls'' forum is a thread titled ''Fake payday loan collection scams - Please list new numbers here [2]''. My notes and advice on the payday loan collection thugs, updated Oct 2011, can be seen on the lead page.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

That's a strange ruse. Try extracting a business name and mailing address you can hit with a cease-comm letter, sent USPS CMRR as always. This also sounds like something for the FTC to hear about.

So amusing how trolls who defend scofflaw collectors claim to be the only ''responsible'' and morally superior commentors. Collection creeps don't care who gets punished, millionaire or minority, prince or pauper. The profile of the alleged debtor is hardly confined to ghetto and trailer park residents, not that the impoverished are any less deserving of legal protection from hostile thugs like JCC.

They conveniently forget that our Bailout Banks routinely punish the frugal and reward the wasteful among us. Most defaulted debt is encouraged by the lender and unintended by the borrower; much of that is unavoidable, a large part being medical debt. When a fixed income grandma's treatment bills might kill her faster than the cancer, I suppose she is also ''a waste of life'' and needs to be dumped on an island, right? That at least would keep her safe from arrogant and delusional pseudo-patriots who think criminal threats are any sort of answer to a civil dispute.

DV / Customer: You haven't even bothered to find out if Beca/Deca thinks you owe something. Blocking and ignoring those calls muffles the noise but does not solve the problem or protect your rights.

Blocking and ignoring collection calls does not pinch off the source of the problem. It also does nothing to defend one's rights, such as the ability to sue for calling two hours ahead of the default legal hours as Ms. Rose reported.

The story might be more plausible if Betty/Marky/Pippa could settle on a single alias.

Yeah, thanks ''Gram''. You're such a peach for giving shills like Becca something to do, mainly trying to cover for the many reports from PASI call recipients of sloppy skip tracing, abusive call center reps, and illegal tactics.

Medical billing in America is besides such a model of dysfunctional corporate behavior that hospital accounts handed to a third party collector need to be disputed on principle. You do not ''settle'' with collection agencies which deny your rights. You make them work to prove claim, gather evidence of violations, and sue them when you have a case.

The homework begins here:
ftc.gov

Would you maybe have a business name to share with readers?

Mistrust of any ''wrong number'' claim is standard procedure at all the rogue collection agencies. You will never get satisfaction from a verbal request, and number blocking turns into an arms race you will lose. Send a cease-comm notice via USPS Certified with return card. The FTC and many consumer watchdogs explain how to draft one. This will set a legal landmine, as such a notice is ignored at their peril.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

Portfolio Recovery Associates (PRA) is among the worst lawbreaking junk debt collectors. I second Duckman's advice, but only for those who are not the alleged debtor PRA wants. I also disagree with any advice to give an impression you want to pay. The overall object is not call cessation but preservation of your rights.

Short Timer, PRA will catch up with you shortly after you swipe a credit card, use a bank check, obtain a new drivers' license, or do anything else which creates footprints on the many databases available to debt collectors.

George, I would assume you've made all your ''demands'' verbally, which rogue collectors are happy to ignore. 1.5 years is a long time to be hassled by phone and never get a dunning letter. That's illegal and cause for a lawsuit if the calls from 2010 regarded the same account they are trying to collect now. Actually, they needed to dun you within five days of first contact.

Next, a collection dunning letter is not required to ''prove'' anything to you. The burden is on the alleged debtor to set the collection agency (CA) to work with a dispute letter. That letter shuts down all contact while the CA gathers your validation or walks away without trying. It can also specify some or all calls as ''inconvenient'', in case they do validate. Any calls which violate the statutory ''quiet period'' or your orders can be added to your lawsuit. Send ALL correspondence via USPS Certified with return card.

Finally, it is very likely an account which defaulted eighteen years ago is well out of Statute of Limitations. Consult your state law and be sure the account is not some weird exception. Once past SoL, a simple cease-comm letter is again a fine choice. PRA can't sue to collect without breaking the law. Moldy debt, and fooling people into resetting the SoL clock, is a favorite pursuit of PRA and its kin.

The federal law with all these fun defenses:
ftc.gov

Obviously what you're doing to revoke call consent will never work. Maybe if you reported a name for the caller or what the caller wants you might get some advice.

Cherryl, I would put no weight into the comment from ''Mike''. Yesterday he spent forty minutes from that post trying to decide what his alias should be, slapping 18 similar inane troll posts on whatever threads were visible on the home page that hour.

Later that day ''Moe'' did much the same, dumping the same item nine times under nine aliases within six minutes, again with no regard to the category of caller.

In this thread, the trolls are distracting readers from the growing consensus that the caller is a credit reprice scammer, meaning ''Rachel'', ''Heather'', and their girlfriends. It's not ''gangstalking'', it's not a Peeping Tom, and it can't be ''Greiner'' if the commentor can't keep his own identity straight.


''Mike'' posing also as ''George'', ''Sally'', and ''Fed up'' blathers about gangstalkers and motor oil.
whocalled.us 19:35:16
whocalled.us 20:01:13
whocalled.us 20:09:54

''Moe'' posing also as ''Beuford'', ''Toni'', and ''Gordon'' possibly trying to prank a single person and offering no proof of allegation.
whocalled.us 23:02:47
whocalled.us 23:06:06
whocalled.us 23:08:23

Okay, John .... You maybe want to help identify the call source rather than insult ''all one'' of the persons reporting a call here? Why again are you not one of the ''pathetic losers'' for knowing the backstory of this caller?

I wish I had a penny for every time someone bitches about callers which ARE EXEMPT from scrubbing the DNC list, goes on to blame ''dah gubment'', and insists nothing is done to help with violators.

The following URL links to the FTC FAQ page which the DNC site *twice* coaxed you to read before you registered your numbers. See items 28 through 32 in particular.
ftc.gov

You will please note that the federal DNC program collects complaints which are useful when regulatory and legal action is taken. You're only adding to a database, and no more. This too is explained if you take the few minutes to READ THE TERMS YOU HAVE AGREED TO. You cannot expect someone to leap from a desk and solve your personal problem just because you file a complaint, moreso when that complaint is about something already permissable.

Given that DNC registry access does take a hefty fee, it might be cheaper to rig up a predictive or sequential dialer to harvest responsive phone numbers.

Why, Ellen, does your mobile phone have special powers to repel a sequential or predictive dialer?

You could start by telling who ''this caller'' is and what's wanted of you.

The absurd ''complaints against'' SSN and the ''good luck'' wish are part of a familiar pattern. I would agree that sending your sensitive data to some payday loan stranger on the internet is never wise.

This may be the usual dirty debt collector within the U.S. or a fake collector from overseas. Either way their threats of arrest, imprisonment, lawsuit filing, and/or asset seizure violate federal and state laws. Try to get a business name and share it with the readers. By federal law this name cannot be withheld.

Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
ftc.gov

On 800Notes in the ''Debt Collection Calls'' forum is a thread titled ''Fake payday loan collection scams - Please list new numbers here [2]''. My notes and advice on the payday loan collection thugs, updated Oct 2011, can be seen on the lead page.

That's great, Ms. King. You've just exposed your personal phone number to every scammer and thief who might harvest it. Enjoy the new flood of junky calls.

You clearly don't understand what a mystery caller site like this is for. Stop following the bad example of ''Margaret Busker'', ''Me'', and ''Anthony Tran''. Whoever is bothering you or took your money *does not manage* this page or this site! Why don't you see if my January comment to Busker might help you?

The word is ''reimbursed'', and isn't that a question for your carrier?

DV, I'm not going to keep repeating myself. No one reading these fuming comments can ''stop it, stop it'' on your behalf. You have not in fact ''tried everything to stop this''.

Bashing your all-caps keyboard here is not doing any good. Reporting exempt calls to DNC is not an answer. Complaints to the FTC and attorneys general would be proper, but those regulators are not going to leap from their desks to solve your personal problems.

If you were told by a live rep or through a recorded call that you have Deca Financial -- a debt collection agency in Fishers, Indiana -- on your tail, you have options. They have already been outlined here two weeks ago.

''Beca'' could have been a misheard name. Be certain which target is yours before you fire any demand letters.

You are all finding that your loyalty and good payment record means nothing to certain lenders. This is the thanks we get for caving when they came begging Congress for handouts. This is one among many reasons people feel forced to default from banks who don't want our business, they just want our money.

The FDCPA won't cover an original creditor like GEMB, but some state laws do, which can help with harassing call patterns. Be warned that GE Money is a fairly litigious lender. Their activity on the court calendars can be as high as the junk debt buyers.

Regard it as you like, but you don't get to choose the terms you agree to when you sign on to a commercial service or government program. You don't have room to complain later if you have not read and understood those terms.

To overcome the exempt status of a caller in your complaint you have to establish behavior which is not exempt. Some comments on 800Notes suggest this is the case, that yet another surveyor, said to be ESG Research, is cloaking sales activity behind a DNC exemption.

The DNC registry works pretty well with honest businesses. You expect somehow that career criminals with sequential dialers should also scrub the list? Pile on the complaints also with the FTC and attorneys general.

To judge from reports here, this likely is yet another of the fake payday loan collectors calling from overseas. This scam has gone on for years and has grown in popularity with Indian and Pakistani criminal boiler rooms. Just as in American debt collection agencies, reps are trained to regard everyone they call as a liar and deserving punishment. Their often absurd threats are empty and their rude tactics are illegal under federal law, the FDCPA. Do not believe their lies, do not argue with them, do not comply with their extortionist demands. Show them you know you have rights they are trampling.

Debt is a civil and not a criminal matter. No matter what you are told, no one is coming to arrest you, and you will not be jailed. There is no valid debt claim and no court order to seize your assets. You need not pay a red cent in ''settlement'' to make their inflicted pain go away. (Really, if they were that sure of your liability, wouldn't they simply hire a lawyer near you to sue for the full amount plus interest?) You will note these often barely intelligible bullies have a laughably poor understanding of American legal procedure. Their hope is that you are just as ignorant.

Try demanding a mailing address and a full business name. If the caller fudges his answer and you cannot verify it, it's likely a PDL sham. Challenge their horse puckey threats; they often make rude remarks and hang up. As the bullies like to hassle people at workplaces, advise your employers and coworkers these calls are garbage and not within your personal control.

The usual response to such a runaway debt collector stateside is to send a cease-comm letter and file suit. If you find a valid US address, please do so. Fierce consumer lawyers will leap at the chance to run such a case on contingency. However, being mostly outside U.S. borders and having no discernable addresses, these particular criminals rarely make it possible for individuals to punish them.

Follow this link for a payday loan scam primer:
debtorboards.com

See discussions here on WCU for these numbers: 7042009909, 5598235337, 8134410108, 4434513816, 4966567520
Mystery call site 800Notes is thick with complaints in the thousands on this issue.

When you're done studying, make some noise ...

- Submit complaints to the FTC and state attorneys general.
- Send word to the FBI via the Internet Crime Complaint Center:
ic3.gov
- The Secret Service might also like to hear from you, per its mandate to investigate all sorts of financial and electronic fraud:
secretservice.gov

Learn how to exercise your rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot gov. The more you know of illegal practices, the faster you will sniff out the fraudsters.
ftc.gov

Thom, the DNC program has done wonders to cut down phone traffic -- within its scope -- from legitimate businesses. What is not working is the reading comprehension of many who have registered their numbers,

ftc.gov

Artie, as noted in the NANPA tag above, Verizon is the *carrier*, not the call source. You will need to look at other mystery call sites and get a human rep to give you a true caller identity.

You're right, Gator. As I discussed here five months ago, PRA holds a ridiculous pile of phone numbers to hurl at your few, some of which were obtained from a defunct telco. They haven't bothered to change the ''Sunrocket'' CID tags, which only adds another layer of deception to calls from that number batch. I've long ago discussed what a ''not me'' case can do. The strategy is more complex if your name is on a debt account, and merely stopping calls is not likely to resolve the whole issue.

If I'm reading correctly between your lines, you thought you had ''settled'' with a prior collection agency. I'd bet they turned around and resold the ''forgiven'' part, just the sort of junky retread account PRA loves. This among many reasons is why paying a rogue third party collector is the worst solution to a debt problem. They will find all manner of ways to sour the deal, break the agreement, and then blame the debtor for ''lack of cooperation''.

Debt buyers like PRA have so little skin in the game they can well afford to offer an easy ''half price sale'' and still turn a huge profit. They also rarely hold any real proof you ever owed. This means you have tremendous leverage to beat them back into their hidey-holes. In your story you assert that no one should be double dipping something already paid. Remember that proving your liablity is *their* problem, not yours.

Your new best friends now are the FDCPA and any state laws you have which may be stronger. If PRA wants your money, you are owed a dunning letter promptly after your first contact. Respond to that with a simple and proper dispute letter, and they can't bother you again until they send validation. Possibly this will be enough to shoo them away. In case it's not, set contact restrictions in the same letter. If your creditor contract has a favorable clause, electing private arbitration can be like wolfbane against their filing suit. Finally, look at your state Statute of Limitations and see if your old account is too aged to sue over.

Meantime, monitor and document all collector phone calls with exacting care, recording clean audio if possible. Sooner or later a junky collector will hand you violations worth up to $1K in a FDCPA suit. Pulling freebie credit reports, on real paper from the bureaus, may also be a good idea. Under FCRA anything placed in your trade lines must be accurate and there for a ''permissable purpose'', else you can sue data ''furnishers'' like debt buyers and credit bureaus which fail to reject the bad data.

Don't panic and don't go lazy. The early stages of debtor dispute are actually fairly simple once you understand the game. If you're smart about it your small efforts and certified mailings can save a lot of headaches (and assets) later.

Places to start your homework:
ftc.gov
ftc.gov
ftc.gov

Debt dispute and validation
collectorsexposed.com
hubpages.com

Statute of Limitations on debt
creditinfocenter.com
cardreport.com
carreonandassociates.com

''MG'', ''Peter'', ''Dana'', and ''Bill'' are so obviously the same person spewing four fake testimonials here within twelve minutes. As Spatula confirmed, this goes on at the other mystery caller sites as well, a pathetic attempt at reputation damage control if ever I saw one.

''Sick of It'': No one else reading your two comments can ''please do something about this''. That is your job, to identify the call source and see if it gets a pass due to a ''prior business relationship'' or some other legally sound purpose. It is your job to report to sites like this any name or purpose for calling you are given. It is your job to file complaints with the FTC and attorneys general. It is your job to avoid handing out your contact data to every phone rep and counter girl whose boss makes them ask, whether or not they have a good reason. Or maybe you'd rather come back in another five months with the same complaint.

It must also be noted, since several comments here mentioned it, that the DNC registry is not a sentry on duty and not a magic shield against every scammer, spoofer, or unwelcome caller in creation. It is a database and nothing more, which honest telemarketers must reference. Please do not expect career criminals with autodialers to respect such niceties as federal regulations. A three digit number hardly qualifies as valid under NANPA. That should tell you right away you could be dealing with an entity which engages in fraud.

There are federal and state laws to help you for each type of pesky caller, some of which allow you to find a judge or arbitrator to punish your callers. When you are able to get specific, the links below should give you places to start your homework.

Telephone Consumer Protection Act
the-dma.org

Telemarketing Sales Rule
business.ftc.gov

Various laws in brief from the FCC
fcc.gov

Fair Debt Collection Practices Act
ftc.gov

Huh .... It's usually the men on dating sites plagued with variants of the ''Russian Bride'' scam. You've found an equal opportunity criminal.

Fredrick Schulman is such a stellar litigator he has to send some under-literate clown to spam every mystery call forum and freebie board in sight. Note that ''Dave'', the toady with a multiple personality disorder, sprayed the same promo here on WCU three times within 3.5 hours.

whocalled.us -- 2011-11-08 15:33:22 UTC -- alias ''Sara''
whocalled.us -- 2011-11-08 15:45:38 UTC -- alias ''Lisa''
whocalled.us -- 2011-11-08 19:04:06 UTC -- alias ''Dave''

Fredrick Schulman has a couple of flimsy websites baked from a template which exhibit the same allergy to spaces between words and proper sentence construction as seen here. On one site the ''How It Works'' and ''Testimonials'' pages are perpetually ''coming soon''. The other is a horrid tiny white type-on-black affair which Vincent Flanders of ''Web Pages That Suck'' fame would dismiss with a wave.

If this is still the guy you want sending your dispute letters and writing your legal briefs and defending your assets, ''good luck as this unfolds''.

Fredrick Schulman & Associates, or any other spamming law firm which preys upon consumers in need, does very little you cannot do for yourself smarter and cheaper as an alleged debtor. Learn the laws which protect you, chiefly the FDCPA. They were written to benefit the ''least sophisticated consumer''.

ftc.gov

Thanks for the spam, ''Lisa''. Or is that ''Sara''? Should it be ''Dave''? See my reply under (8664175761) whocalled.us

Thanks for the spam, ''Sara''. Or is that ''Lisa''? Make that ''Dave''? See my reply under (8664175761) whocalled.us

In the sense that AI is not a subsidiary or partner of Crap One, they are unaffiliated. However, Allied Interstate is a favorite attack dog of Capital One, and may illegally pose as the original creditor. ''FedUp'' may have heard a stretched truth.

Juvenile pranks like blasting whistles and horns and gongs is a great way to attract a harassment charge and get your account marked for extra special attention you don't want. If you want real revenge, keep quiet and wait for AI to hand you violations of FDCPA and FCRA, then spank it with the help of a judge or private arbitrator. Can an air horn win you four-figure payouts for statutory and actual damages?

Troubled: You may have a cause of action under FCRA. PRA needs a ''permissable purpose'' to pull credit reports. The can't just go fishing without a collection account in their possession. Obtain hard prints of the major bureau reports; those are the only ones a judge can't dismiss. The bureaus don't make it easy for consumers to correct or delete faulty trade lines, but it can be done with patience.

If a collector thinks you owe something, a dunning letter must be sent within five days of first contact. Failing that violates FDCPA.

pile o'resources:

ftc.gov
privacyrights.org
epic.org
creditboards.com
consumers.creditnet.com
debtorboards.com
debtorboards.com
debt-consolidation-credit-repair-service.com

Prepare for more of that snotty tone, Sue. You've no obligation to respond verbally and they know it. PRA is a chronic lawbreaker. Document all calls and CID carefully and record clean phone audio if possible. Be aware that PRA has a ridiculously large bank of phone numbers to call from, many left over from defunct telco Sunrocket. If you are dunned be sure to dispute the claim on paper as the FTC discusses.

See my August 2011 comments under the thread below for several stinging facts about Portfolio Recovery. (Sadly you'll have to scroll past some recent stupid troll posts to get there.)
whocalled.us