2142831316

The national pandemic of telephone terrorism perpetrated by desperate criminal collection agencies and scam artists of every despicable sort is because they are trying to terrorize people who are naive enough to answer and submit to unsolicited telephone calls or written "collection" letters that have no legitimate legal debt associated with them or any of the companies, universities, or whomever else they claim to represent. Because most "little guys" were bankrupted by the criminal Wall St / Congress / Big Oil / Big Bankers / Big Business / Military / Robber Barons, so the desperate collection agencies are attempting to collect unpaid debts from innocent people by terrorizing them into submission. News reports claim that some of these nefarious rogue calls are originating from overseas, where the caller claims to be a relative down on his or her luck who needs hundreds or thousands of dollars to get out of trouble, a policeman or government agent threatening their unwitting victims with lawsuits, fines, garnishments, seizures of property and imprisonment, and any other unconscionable tactic they can use to terrify and swindle the unwary out of their life savings.

Word of advice. NEVER answer any calls you don't recognize or are not expecting. Use selective call rejection service if available, or switch to an Internet-based telephone service which provides comprehensive call rejection options. If rogue calls become chronic, turn off all the ringers on all of your phones except one, and set its volume to the minimum setting. Digital hardware call blockers, the popular "DIGITONE Call Blocker 10" for example, could help or do harm depending on how high-tech and aggressive the rogue callers are against your phone number. The more technology you use against them, the more likely they will use technology more aggressively against you to the point where your phone could ring more frequently from rogue calls and in middle of the night hours. So staying lower-tech could actually help to keep your phone a bit more under their unrelenting predatory radar. If you don't answer the call and the caller is legitimate, they will usually leave a voicemail after the first or second try. Rogue callers almost never leave voicemail messages because that could be used as evidence against them if it came to a lawsuit, albeit spoofed calls are backed by governments and corporations, so there is nothing the little guy can do against such illegitimate activities but to block and ignore them. If you receive a rogue letter in the mail warning you of some "collection" action against you, if you don't actually owe it, reply with a short letter stating that you don't owe it. Or if you do owe all or part of it, reply with something like "You claim I owe you a debt. Under §809 FDCPA, I request validation of this debt."

Only give them your name as THEY have written it to you (e.g. “John Doe” not “Jonathon Q. Doe” or however you normally sign your own name), address, and the account number they report. But if you do not owe the debt (zombie debt, aged debt, mistaken or stolen identity, forgery, etc.) state that you have never done any business with them or with the (alleged) original creditor of any kind and you expect the collection agency to close the matter, stop harassing you and take any bad credit marks they've caused off of your credit rating, and furthermore, that any further contact from them must be in writing on their official business correspondence letterhead. Send your letter to them a.s.a.p., always within thirty days, first class certified mail return receipt requested. If they refuse it and you get the letter back unopened, leave it unopened and save it in your files as evidence against them should they pursue legal action against you. If they did receive it and continue to pursue action against you, let them. The judge will throw it out of court. If the rogue collection agency sells your account to another rogue collection agency just tell them the claim has been proven invalid and offer to send them a copy of your letter to the previous rogue collection agency.

Warn all your friends about this rash of desperate collection agency terrorism, and how to combat it. Knowledge is power. The more you learn how to combat rogue collection agencies, back-taxes scammers, phishing scammers, "faith and family" scammers, political action committees and other low-life flimflammers, the more you will learn how easy it is to do.

Above all, keep a record of everything, of every rogue call w/ caller ID information displayed including time and date of each call. Maintain a complete file on any snail-mailed intimidation from rogue collection agencies, including copies of all correspondences and postal receipts. Reporting rogue calls on sites like 800notes.com, whocallsme.com, phoneowner.info is a great idea too, because many people find these sites by googling for the rogue number(s) after receiving calls from them.

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Start Here:
http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs3-hrs2.htm
http://www.google.com/search?num=50&q=%C2%A7809+FDCPA
http://www.google.com/search?num=50&q=zombie-debt
http://www.google.com/search?num=50&q=slander-of-credit
http://www.google.com/search?num=50&q=limited ... llection-agency
http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs27-debtcoll.htm
http://www.ehow.com/way_5849463_do-up-certified-dispute-letter.html
http://www.hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Defeat-a-Collection-Agency
http://www.hubpages.com/hub/Battling-Consumer-Debt-Collectors-Part-2-I-Do-Not-Owe-This-Debt
http://www.hubpages.com/hub/Sample-letters-for-disputes-to-creditors--collectors-and-credit-bureaus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FDCPA
http://www.fair-debt-collection.com/Disputing ... ute-letter.html
(most say the above sample letter is too long and should be much shorter)
http://www.fair-debt-collection.com/statue-limitations.html
http://www.spooftel.com/

Credit Report:
https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp

USPS:
https://www.usps.com/send/insurance-and-extra-services.htm

Other links:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/02/29 ... tors/index.html
http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Defeat-a-Collection-Agency
http://clarkhoward.com/shownotes/category/12/103/358/
http://clarkhoward.com/topics/drop_dead_letter.html
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Information for filing complaints against rogue telephone calls, telephone harassment, false "bill collector" harassment, etc., in the United States and Canada (pursue legal action only as a last resort):

UNITED STATES

US National Do Not Call Registry, file complaint: https://www.donotcall.gov/complaint/complaintcheck.aspx

Federal Trade Commission
http://www.ftc.gov 1-877-382-4357
File complaint online: https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov
https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/FTC_Wizard.aspx?Lang=en
that is at www.ftc.gov

Federal Communications Commission
Telephone toll free:  1-888-225-5322
http://www.fcc.gov/contacts.html
File complaint online: http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumers.html
http://esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm

FCC Abandoned Calls Complaint form:
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/1088D-R.pdf
email:  fccinfo@fcc.gov

Better Business Bureau, Check out a Business, find owner, contact info; file a Complaint:
http://www.bbb.org/us/


INTERNET CRIME:
File report for Internet Crime at:
Internet Crime Complaint Centre
http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx


CANADA

RCMP Phone busters
Telephone toll free: 1-888-495-8501
Mon-Fri 8:30-5:20 pm (Eastern Time)
E-mail: info@phonebusters.com
RCMP Website is at: http://www.phonebusters.com  
File complaint online:  https://www.recol.ca/intro.aspx?lang=en
(Register with a password and then can continually file complaints)

Canada National Do Not Call Registry:
Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)
Telephone toll free to File A Complaint: 1-866-580-3625
(to withdraw a complaint is 877-249-2782)
CRTC online complaints form: https://www.lnnte-dncl.gc.ca/pfplin-fccoin-eng
that is at  www.crtc.gc.ca

Better Business Bureau, Check out a Business, find owner, contact info; file a Complaint:
http://www.bbb.org/canada/

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Calls from this number today.  Prefer they do not call me again.  I will not answer!  

Got a call today. Geez, this phone number has been in operation since 2007!

They call & leave no message on my machine

This number has called a few times.  Always hangs up after 3 rings.  Not sure what the point is if they don't either give ample time to pickup or wait for the answering machine.   These people are in too big a hurry for me.  

Missed the call.  Caller i.d. said 'survey'.  Glad I missed it.

As Jeff Dunham & Achmed the dead terrorist would say ? Shutup ! I kill you !

Multiple calls from this number, no idea who it is.

This call came in and I let it go the answering machine since I didn't recognize the number.   Then just dead space on the machine.  Caller ID only showed 'wireless caller'

dial tone when I picked up

Joe, we simply do not have enough info to do anything regarding these calls.
These are VOip callers and even the internet info is of no value as the NDNC list only looks into calls.

Just don't answer phone and block if you are able.

If enough people demanded that our phone providers (land and cell) do something about these calls and really made a big deal out of the whole thing, then maybe, just maybe someone will start doing something.

Other than that, all you can do is ignore, they cannot bother you unless you allow them to. Its a phone call, nothing more, nothing less.

Coleen,  this forum is for people to inform each OTHER regarding the calls. This IS NOT the callers, so please read the posts before you demand for anyone to stop calling you.

We are a collective group sharing info so others have some knowledge of the callers and no how to deal.

Another thing, these people do not care about the NDNC list (the ones whom call, not post), they are breaking the law so it does not matter if you are on the list, they do not care, they cannot be caught.

The Federal Trade Commission can be reached at 877-438-4838.  I have set up a reference number and each call I get from telemarketer, etc. I report.  If enough people call and report a number such as this TX number, some one may do something about it.

Isn't there someone strong enough in Congress to do something about these calls?  Obviously there isn't - if there was the National Do NOT Call fiasco would be "operational".  Folks - let's remember this around election time VOTE OUT ALL INCUMBANTS.  

Agree! But Colleen is just one of many that use this site to just vent frustration in the same manner. I doubt that these types of people bother reading any of the other posts. If the National Do Not Call List is not working, then laws have to be changed. As someone expressed earlier, politicians are not likely to do anything when big phone company lobbyists put the screws on them and/or line their re-election campaign chests with money. The phone companies have the technological know how to stop scammers but don't because they don't see it as profitable. Like someone else pointed out, the phone companies are making money off those frustrated people who willingly increase their phone bills to add blocking capabilities. The companies making those devices that block unwanted calls also make money off frustrated consumers. They think they have us over a barrel and, in a way, they do. Can we live without our phones? Imagine if the tens of thousands of people disgusted by these annoying calls or that have been ripped off by the scammers, would demand that phone companies do something or they'll lose customers. If we could hit the phone companies in the pocket book, then they'd listen and perhaps take some action.

Sounds like you have really done your homework. Thanks for sharing the info. Too bad we can't elect you to Congress.

didn't answer.... (I let calls go to my cell, then mark them 'ZNO' ... which drops the number to to end of the contact list and isn't intrusive)  These days almost NO calls coming in are personal and I can see which not to answer without being concerned that I've missed a client.  Thank HEAVENS for this site!!!

# on caller ID Wireless Calling 214 283 1316. Didn't leave voice message. Wasn't home when they called.

Called tonight.  985 area code where I live.... no message.  Did not answer....  Called at 7:30 pm tonight.  

shows up as Wireless caller and is annoying.