Cease & Desist, long sorry

Hi All

I have a dumb questionâ?¦ Can I send a cease & desist to a lawyer who is trying to collect a debt from the previous owners of our current phone number?

When we bought the new house we got a new phone number. The couple that owned it previously couldnâ??t pay attention. CCâ??s, utilities, car loans and the IRS have been calling. Now there is a law firm calling, but it is a recorded message that directs you to an 800 number with no live operator. â??Please enter the ext of the party you wish to reach.. blah, blah, blah.â? Of course they donâ??t give an ext number on the message, and the company voicemail box is always full and you canâ??t leave a message. Trust me, I have tried.

I know what you are thinkinâ?? â??who cares?â? but itâ??s hard enough to when the collections are for you and have to listen to the calls, but when itâ??s a total strangersâ?? it really starts to dig at you. We use an answering machine and thatâ??s all we need is for this law firm to call when we have company. â??Honest.. thatâ??s not for usâ?. Talk about embarrassing.

I have the law firmâ??s address and get this; a member of the previous ownersâ?? family called looking for them and I got their number off caller-id so I have been giving that out to all the CAâ??s that have been calling. What I would like to do is send the cease & desist with that phone number so they stop calling our number. But without the account information I think they will ignore it and the phone calls will continue.

Sorry, but they called again today and I canâ??t take it any more. I need to do something. We had 17 â??out of areaâ? calls today, one message.

What should I do?

PS.. learn from my mistake.. when issued a new phone number ask the phone company why its available. Our number was available due to non-payment and was back in circulation in 90 days.

 

I just got to check your responses now, thanks to all that responded. As for changing the answering machine, we have tried that already. Three second hellos. The long drawn out message.. you have reached Mr. & Mrs. ****, we even spelled out the name, if you and to leave a message for Mr. & Mrs. **** (spell the name again) please do so now. Currently we are the Law Firm of (current last name) and (my maiden name). The family gets a kick out of that one.

I wish it was as easy as â??get a new numberâ? I got married Sept 8th, bought a new house Sept 27th we changed everything by the time we moved in October 15th. All our accounts are current with correct names, addresses and phone numbers. I canâ??t image do all that again. Not to mention family. We are paying for an unlisted number; and we did not forward the old number(s), the phone books change in April in Michigan so whenever we look up our number it shows Mr and Mrs. Deadbeat.

My concern is the C&D do I have to get all legal on them, itâ??s not my debt so I donâ??t have any info on it. All I can say is the law firm is calling the wrong phone number and I could give them a phone number of a family member of Mr. and Mrs. Deadbeat, call them not me.

It seems trivial to some, but we have too much tied to that phone number to change on a whim. I just want the phone calls to stop.

The very frustrated Mrs. Desdemona.