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Has anyone run into something like this? Yesterday, my wife answered the phone & it was a recorded message stating that the call was from a collection agency & to call a certain phone number. I've never dealt with collection agencies before, but, this seems like it might be some kind of a scam. I would think there would have been a bill sent in the mail first. We don't miss any payments on any of our bills.
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Loring in Katy, TX USA
If your only tool is a hammer, you tend to treat all problems as if they were nails.
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I have. A phone number I got when I got my last apartment belonged to a deadbeat. I had a recorded message call every couple days for about a month. The first week I ignored them The second week I called back twice and left a message telling them they had the wrong person. The third week I called and spoke to a person who said they'd fix it. The fourth week I called and asked for a manager. That person said there were multiple records in their system with my phone number and that was why I still getting calls, and that there was not a way to find them. I told them they'd better or I was reporting them to the Attorney General and suing for harrasment. I didn't get any more calls.David
The chief cause of failure in this life is giving up what you want most for what you want at the moment.Comment
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I get a couple of automated calls a day from a collection agency looking for someone who happens to have the same last name as I do, despite telling them they have the wrong number.-- SteveComment
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I've never had one that said they were a collection agency, although now, that wouldn't be surprising (in the news every day).
What I have had, is calls like this (computer generated) that request you call them back at.....
Then YOU have initiated contact and they can start calling you (they no longer have to follow the no call list as they have LOGGED your call as a defense). So they and their "partners/associates" can start calling you.
It could also be collection for someone with the same name, EVEN though the spelling may be very different (the one letter I received and call, was due to them using all spellings in the phone book). I called the place that they alleged I rented (never rented in my life) and talked to the owner, and he said he would contact them so I wouldn't have to go through my attorney.
I also received one call for someone with the same name, and the gal asked if I remembered her (no idea, never heard her before). She tried to claim she was my daughter, but I would have been two when I had her.She couldn't tell the difference between the escape pod, and the bathroom. We had to go back for her.........................Twice.Comment
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The recording never gives a name they are looking for. It only stated that it is from a collection agency & then give a phone number to call & a reference number to give when calling.
The whole thing seems strange. I'm not sure about calling to number to find out more, but, I definitely get concerned about identity fraud. My wife has had to close two accounts in the last year because she caught fraudulent charges.Comment
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Almost definitely a scam! One way it works is that you call the number and there is a very large charge on your phone bill. They try to make it look like an 800 type number so people think they have nothing to lose by calling it.
You might find reference to it at snopes.com.
Speaking of which, if you get anything about a virus going around on computers, or any other scary messages for that matter, and they invoke the name of Snopes.com to which they have a link in the email, do not use that link. It is often a website set up to imitate Snopes.
Go out of the email and enter the url Snopes.com into your address bar, that's the only way you will know that you are getting the genuine article.
These things come to me mostly from friends who mean well, but these emails are out there by the millions, and 99% of the time the threat is either non-existent or very old and already dealt with by all the security people.You don't need a parachute to skydive, you only need a parachute to skydive twice.Comment
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I used to have a phone number that was 1 digit off from a collection agency, lots of interesting foaming at the mouth calls from people thinking they had reached the agency. Finally got tired of it and looked up one of those phone sex lines and left a message on my machine that the CA's number had been changed to some obscure painful fetish number.--
Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from maliceComment
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It could be a collection agency looking for someone related to you -- that's happened to me before. Verify that the phone number is legitimate before you call back -- or look up the agency and call their direct number to validate it. Or just ignore it.
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"Life is short, Art long, Occasion sudden and dangerous, Experience deceitful, and Judgment difficult." -HippocratesComment
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My desk phone has been melting off the hook for the bozo that left the job 5 years prior to me. I give them no information, but I simply ask them what did they want, and if they ask me is this so and so I tell them, this is the person to whom this number is assigned...
I don't make anything easy for these clods...
The ones that really tick me off is the idiots that call my cell phone during work hours. I got one in the bathroom that wasn't a machine. I like messing with "Withheld" and "Unknown"...
ring ring... (hmmm, unknown caller, click talk...)
Me...."Dude, did you get away from the cops?"
Telemarketing person if there is one there "Uh...."
If machine it rambles on and I hang up...
Me... "I'm sure they saw that, the blood was everywhere! If you don't get to Mexico you are gonna end up on death row..."
caller... "click!"Please like and subscribe to my YouTube channel. Please check out and subscribe to my Workshop Blog.Comment
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My wife called me at work about a month ago about a recorded message from a collection agency. I called the number back from a desk phone at work and it WAS legit, but they had the wrong person. When I talked to a lady at the collection agency, she asked if I was Joe Blow (don't remember the name) and I said "no, I wasn't". She said that she was sorry to bother me and they would remove my number from that account. We have never been contacted again by them. So, you might want to call the number and clear it up, or they will likely keep calling. I purposely did not call back from the number they called in case it was a scam.Comment
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Several years ago we ditched our land line phone. We now only have cell phones. Late this summer I received several calls from a collection agency from New Mexico that was alleging to be representing the NM state prosecutors office. After a bout three of these I had to call them twice to inform them that I was not the guy they were looking for. Since they already had my number I just told them that. When the person on the other end of the line wanted my name I told him that my name did not matter as I have not been in NM since living there as a child. I never received any other calls from them.Donate to my Tour de Cure
marK in WA and Ryobi Fanatic Association State President ©
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Use Google and put the number in the box. You would be surprised sometimes at the information you can get back on a number.
Bernie
Owww -- That spinnin' thang hurt!!
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