Comments on: This is NOT the Party to Whom You’re Speaking!

By: LarsVargas

LarsVargas — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 15:47:39 +0000

Karen, good points all around. Thanks for posting and bringing a little perspective. I have removed the last name. The first names are accurate, but I wasn’t sure if the last name was right anyway, at least the spelling. It didn’t serve any real purpose, so just in case they are innocent (and I had the name right) I have removed it. Like you said, no sense embarrassing the innocent.

Oddly enough, since I have posted this story, Vince and Gayle haven’t gotten that many calls. Maybe one or two that I can remember. However, “Mary” and “Sarah” are now getting about 3 or 4 calls a week. And no, I don’t know their last names, nor will I post them.

By: Karen

Karen — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 17:37:55 +0000

I can sympathize, since I have had the same problem on my last couple of phone numbers. I used to return the calls when they’d leave “please call 800-xxx-xxxx regarding an important business matter” messages, until I found that it was always for someone I’d never heard of, and the people on the other end were always rude. They even expected me to give them a lot of information about myself. They acted as if I was really Jane Doe, or her best buddy covering for her. What kind of person assumes every person they call to pester is a liar? Sorry, if you’re looking for Jane Doe, and I’m not her, and she’s never lived here, I’m doing you a favor by telling you that much — no honest company would then demand my name, address, etc. Any company that keeps calling, after being informed they’re calling an incorrect number, is not an honest company.

So I don’t return those calls anymore — let them waste their time. Talking to them and politely telling them they were calling a wrong number never stopped the calls, but ignoring them eventually does. Given what my research into the debt collection industry turned up, I figure the odds are good that Jane Doe doesn’t owe any money anyway, and these “debt collectors” are really just scammers looking for a new victim to defraud.

Do you need to post (what look like) the real names of the people all these pests are trying to reach at your phone number? You don’t know anything about them, and it’s clear from my own experience and what I’ve read that the debt collection agencies frequently call the wrong people, or call about debts that don’t exist. Maybe you could be the good guy here and take their names off this page? We don’t need to know, and the fact that a lot of debt collectors are calling for them turns out to be a pretty useless measure of whether they actually owe any money. You could be embarrassing innocent people who are the victims of identity fraud, or database mixups.

By: Special K

Special K — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 01:51:04 +0000

Yah, try having the same name as a looser who didn’t pay any bills and almost cost me a mortgage! Never had a problem with my name in New England, but some looser here in Florida has the same name. Let’s see: 1) Two days after moving to FL and signing up at Hollywood Video, I was informed that I owed $25 in overdue videos – from 1999! I wasn’t even married then. 2) the biggy – my mortgage company went through the usual people to check our credit. I guess the person at the credit company forgot to cross reference my SS# – yah, the one all important thing to remember. We received a call 24 hours prior to closing informing me that I owed $$$ to a hospital, more $$$ to an apartment complex that I was kicked out of. Gee, I hope the other Special K has a much more interesting life than I do! I informed them that I wasn’t married until 2000, (thus the last name) and I wasn’t a florida resident until 2002! I wish I could go back to Vargas – not that many of us in the US. Anyways, after a conference call, we found out the error of the wonder boy at the credit company, they crossed referenced my SS# and all was good again. 3) I received a SPRINT bill for over $450. Never have I been a SPRINT customer and the way I was treated on the phone (turkish prison anyone) I will never be a customer – YES, I NAME NAMES! I finally convinced them I was not the Special K they were looking for and hung up. I figured they did an internet search in the area I live in and since all of the utility bills were in my name – the name search matched. 4) to this day I still receive calls and letters from numerous collection agencies regarding the BAD Special K. It takes so much time to convince them I am not the person they are looking for! Again – Turkish Prison anyone? Moral to the story – I want to go back to the last name I always hated throughout my life and kick the common last name to the curb.