A couple of days ago we recieved a call from Dillard’s credit collection department about Sandra Tayler’s overdue account of $1100. The only problem is that I’ve never shopped at Dillard’s. Howard bought a suit there once, but the most I’ve ever done is walk through the store on my way into the mall. The collection people had my name, my phone number, but someone else’s address. We told them they’d gotten ahold of the wrong person, end of phone call. But the incident preyed upon my attention. Since identity theft is the popular crime these days, I decided to check my credit report. I surfed to annualcreditreport.com to get my free report. There are other sites which offer this service, but their “free” reports come with strings attached. My credit report was exactly how I expected it to be and there was nothing on it from Dillards. I breathed a sigh of relief and expected that to be the end of it.
Today I got two more phone calls. During the course of the phone calls I determined that the Sandra Tayler they are looking for has a different middle initial, different social security number, and lives in a different town. How they managed to attach my phone number to this other person’s account I’m not sure. I AM sure that there is no way they can legally stick me with that $1100 account payment. This is good news. The bad news is that credit collection agencies are notoriously persistant. They expect people to deny responsibility. They expect to be lied to. I’m afraid that I’m in for nuisance phone calls for quite awhile until they manage to actually track down this other person.
I’ve never been on the recieving end of credit collection before, does anyone know what tactics they may mistakenly attempt to appy to me while trying to collect from this other person?
EDIT: April 10, 2005 — The problem is resolved, they’ve stopped calling. Yay!
Well, first of all, you can legally demand that they stop calling you, and only work with you by US Mail. This should get them in touch with the *right* Ms. Tayler at least.
If they’ve told you who they’re looking for [which they have], and you’ve demonstrated that you’re not that person [which you have] and have evidence of same [which you do], and they still keep bothering you in ANY form, have an attorney write them a cease-and-desist letter. If they still persist after that, go see the judge, explain the circumstances, obtain an injunction, and file legal charges against them for harassment. If they’re knowingly going after the wrong person simply because they refuse to believe you’re the wrong person in spite of incontrovertible evidence to the contrary, they deserve to get slapped down hard.
Actually…
If they should call again, hit the record function on yer message machine (assuming you have an answering machine), inform them that this call is being recorded for your records.
Then explain to them again how they are in error, an dthat if they should contact you again, you will be filing lawsuit under relivant FCC rule.
This trick worked with telemarketers before the No Call list started, cause my law, one you informed them you no longer wanted to be contacted, and they did, there were fines and fees for them that were automatic.
Per call.
And several grand wentto the citizen.
So prepare for a few fun calls, and be sure to get where they are located, and the company name, and there their CEO has his office. Threats to have him served papers on behalf of his company in civil/small claims court for the mere agrivation/harrassment stops most dead in their tracks.
It got Sprint off my tail for 150 bucks they wanted to charge me for switching cell-phone services the month my contract was up, and for which I had already paid. It’s amazing how rapidly messages get from admin assistant to CEO when the phrases “Process Server” and “Small claims court” and “punitive damages” are used…
Re: Actually…
It’s true, one of my neighbors made $50,000 last year recording phonecalls made to him in violation of FCC rules and taking people to court. Most were telemarketers, of course, but a few were mistaken collection agencies that decided not to believe him and ended up paying him $5000 per phonecall in damages.
Judges rarely like telemarketers or collection agencies, and maximum penalties are often levied.
My roommate in college went through this. There was another Nathan Bradford on our campus and he was apparently much less wise about how he spent his creditors’ money. I’ll drop him an e-mail and see what he did to get it cleared up. I remember that there was nothing that the collection agency could do, and that whatever it was that he did wasn’t too difficult, and that it happened quickly.
I just got an e-mail from my college roommate. All he did was send the agency a letter iinforming them that they had the wrong person and a photocopy of his birth certificate. That way he didn’t have to give a ssn or other numeric identifier to them, though since you are married, I bet that your marriage license would probably be better. This is all assuming that you haven’t gotten this cleared up in the last few weeks.
Thanks for the help/advice. The collection companies verified the last four digits of my social security number and that seems to have resolved the problem. I haven’t heard from them in more than a week.
Glad that you’ve gotten it cleared up (hopefully.) The reason Rube didn’t do it that way is that someone had suggested (his mom I think) he not give them his SSN unless things got worse. The last four digets thing is a good idea.
Well, have a good day.