HARDtoTOP

I had a debt company try to collect a bogus bill from me last year. They were very rude on the phone and tried to pin a debt of almost $2k on me that I clearly did not owe. I had to use Steve's tactic of telling them the calls were "harassing" in order for them to leave me alone.

I wish I would have had this helpful wiki to deal with the jerks at the time:

http://www.wikihow.com/Deal-With-Collection-Agencies

zzziippyyy

I have never had to deal with a bill collector crosses fingers it will never happen. But I would presume a simple

billcollector : ring ring

you: hello

bill collector : this is bill collector number 1 calling about this bill

you : click

Done

FTR if you call my house private or your caller ID does not show the call is rejected, if you call i see your number there is a little pad of paper near the phone that i write a bad # on, I wont answer the same # twice and to make matters worse im one of those that rarely answers the phone anyhow unless i know who you are.

If its important enough they will leave a message.

PuFF

Bass

And not to say that you will NOT pay it but rather you are disputing the claim and you must to put the onus on collection company to prove the debt was in fact yours ie with invoice copies / signed contracts etc etc

We don

HARDtoTOP

Dave, never say never. Like I said, I was absolutly not responsible for the bill they said. And, they call back hundreds of times if you dont deal with them. you can write the number down all you want, when it rings 50 times a day, you will be ready to pay the bill even if you dont owe it

zzziippyyy

^ entirely possible I dont doubt that.

But trust me i dont answer the phone if i dont want to. Trust me on that and even more so if i know i dont owe you anything. At that point ring away the phone will not be answered. Eventually you will give up and just send a certified letter.

Again trust me I will NOT answer the phone well actually i may it will sound like this

click



Also even bettah phone off the hook, anyone that needs to call me uses my cell anyhow The land line is there as a formality and thats the number that gets listed for all the bills, accounts etc.

Bass

comcast VOIP has the abilty to block certain incoming numbers - oh and most debt companies do not use private / blocked numbers. they have thousands of different phone numbers the dialer can call from. A person isn

HARDtoTOP

I use my grand central number as my "official" number and only give my home and cell number to friends. GC can automatically block numbers and your phone never rings. Very handy.

zzziippyyy

[QUOTE=Bass,Dec 3 2008, 07:59 PM] most debt companies do not use private / blocked numbers. they have thousands of different phone numbers the dialer can call from. A person isn

LazyProfessor

I NEVER answer my home phone. Important people have my cell number - anyone else can speak to my machine. I'm never home anyway.