Help Stopping collection calls

The first step you ask about is extremely easy.

Simply tell the callers that you do not discuss such matters on the telephone and if they have anything to say then they will just have to do it by mail. And hang up on them.

The next step is to send them what is known as a cease and desist letter. Once they receive the cease and desist letter they theoretically cannot call you by phone again.

Now then, while it is not totally true that they must cease and desist from nagging phone calls forever nor under any and all conditions, it will help to reduce the amount of harrassment going on. The most effective of the two is simply telling them that you do not discuss such matters on the telephone, be firm about it and hang up.

If they can't get anywhere by phone, they give up very quickly and move on to other people who will put up with their tirades.

What will most likely happen after that is the usual courses of action.

Some will just forget about the debt and maybe put a hickey on your credit report and that's all you will ever hear from them.

Some will proceed to court and sue for the amount owed plus all of the damages and other junk they can tack on and then forget about it.

Some will go to court, get a judgement and then go for a garnishment and start grabbing your house, your car, your money, your furniture, whatever they can get their mitts on.

So there is no telling what any given collection agency or creditor might actually do or be able to do. It's all depending on a lot of different things that are totally beyond your control if you do nothing at all but just ignore the whole mess and refuse to talk about it and refuse to answer their letters. It's up to them what they want to do about it within reasonable limits.

They can't come up to your door with a big gorilla and start hollering "YOU PAY OR I BREAKA YOU LEG". In other words, they can't resort to violence or threats of violence. They can't set your house on fire, or anything else nasty. They have certain laws they must follow of course and if they break the law, they pay just like any other criminal.

Now then, it seems fairly certain that you have little knowledge of how to handle creditors and their harping or you would already know what I have just told you. So althogh the advice I am offering seems simple enough (and it is) it is nowhere near all the advice or help that you are going to need over time. Before long, you are going to have to either learn how to fight the creditors and collection agencies and win against them or you are going to have to hire someone who does know how to effectively do that.

If you go at it right, it is entirely possible to legally force all your creditors to simply forgive all the debts you owe and take all the bad marks off your credit bureau files and forget about the fact that you ever existed.

While I'm not about to tell you how to do all that, one thing you should never do is to simply trash all the bills they send you since you can't pay them anyway. You need to keep them even if it's only in a shoe box or a whole bunch of shoe boxes. You need to keep them in order by the name of the creditor you owe, not by the person or company or date you got them. The reason is that if you ever learn how to fight them off and win or you hire someone who does know how to do that for you then those letters can contain valuable information that you/they can use to effectively fight and win. Of course, if you don't want to keep 16 tons of old bills around, you can simply get a notebook and make a list of which creditors/collection agencies have contacted you, the last date that you paid them anything which is known as the "date of last activity" and the amounts you owe them in the beginning and the amounts they tack on as time goes on for interest, penalties late fees and all the rest of the junk they claim you owe them. All of this is information that you will lose if you just trash their letters and which can help you in the event that you ever decide to start fighting them or hire somebody else to do it for you.

I'll leave you with that for starters because you don't seem to be ready for much else yet and also for reasons of keeping this post down to something readable and understandable.

 

I would talk dirty to the collection ladies.

Never did get a call back from them

 

Another one that would change the situation is to stop them in the middle of their spiel and ask them a question which leads into a joke and then tell the joke and while they are still laughing hang up on them.

One idea for a cute joke is to ask them if they happen to know what Viagra is made out of or what happened when they accidently reversed the batteries on the energizer bunny.

If you want the answers, you are going to have to email me because I'm not going to give the answers on this forum

Neither is particularly nasty or dirty, however.

 

How can you leave us hanging like that?!?

 

How to annoy the collection agencies as a return favor:

1. Listen to their calls without responding, simply throw in an occasional..hmmm....and other verbal head nods, clear your throat often, cough, hack, make other disgusting sounds. Play musical tunes on the keypad on your phone, after a little practice you might actually become quite good at this. Bang the receiver on the table frequently during the call, feign being hard of hearing and ask them to repeat themselves often.

2. Always take the name of the person calling you, mailing address of the agency, note the date, time and lengon a note pad, ask for a fax number. If you have a fax modem on your computer create invoices, billing them for a "consultation fee" for the call...$2.99 a minute is a good fee. Fax this to them at regular intervals, making the request for payment more stern with each fax.

3. My favorite. Buy one of those canned air horns that fans use at games - when you find out it is the collector calling you - simply blast the horn into the mouthpiece. (A whistle also works well for this).

4. As soon as the collector identifies his/her self, advise them to hold a second, come back and tell them "I am notifying you that this call is being recorded. If you wish to continue speaking with me, you acknowledge your agreement to this." Eight out of ten will simply hang up.

5. Annoy them in return - Example:

Collector: Hi, is John Smith there?
Me: Who is this?
Collector: This is Jim calling from ABC Collections.
Me: Oh c'mon Roger, I'd know your voice anywhere.
Collector: No, this is Jim from ABC Collections, calling about your unpaid bill.
Me: Roger, you can't fool me. I know your voice, we were lovers for 10 years. Why did you leave me, I miss you Rog.
Collector: Sir, once again, I'm not Roger....
Me: (Interrupting) Roger, why did you leave me, you know I still have those dreams about you....I have to take cold showers.

Eventually, they get frustrated and hang up. Sometimes it is hard to keep from laughing while you are speaking to them.

Sometimes you just have to have fun with them.

 

Hal,

ROTF - LMAO. Too funny. Ever consider a job as a writer? Credit needs a little humor.

 

I suggest Bud Hibbs' techniques.

You can download and read his book
â??The American Credit System Guilty! Until Proven Innocentâ? (and it's free)

Here's the link:

http://www.budhibbs.com/


Good luck!!!!

 

With a tall tree and enough rope to hang yourself with.

All you lack then is ole Bud to whang the horse a good one.

(LOL)

 

It's called PRIVACY MANAGER. Call your local phone company and inquire about it. I never have any problems with "Unknown" or "Unavailable" calls anymore. Annonymous Call Rejection just wasn't working.

 

I HAVE CALLER ID...
PRESS *77 NO PRIVATE/NAME~PRIVATE/NUMBER CALLS ARE EVER RECEIVED...

YOU CAN "SEND" THE OUT OF AREA CALLS TO THE ANSWERING MACHINE, ALONG WITH THE CALLS FROM PEOPLE WHO YOU REALLY DON'T KNOW...OR DON'T WANT TO TALK TO...

 

PRIVACY MANAGER IS GREAT!!!

If you have an SBC affiliated phone company, it should be an option for you. I especially like the greeting that instructs the caller not to call back.

 

>3. My favorite. Buy one of those canned air horns
> that fans use at games - when you find out it is
>the collector calling you - simply blast the horn into
>the mouthpiece. (A whistle also works well for this).

This post was hilarious as hell, but I just wanted to caution anyone who might take the airhorn suggestion to heart. I once read about someone who tried to deter a crankcaller/stalker with this very technique (I believe she used one of those rape alarms though), and ended up blowing out the perpetrators ear drum. He sued her and won!

I wholeheartedly endorse Hal's roger method though.