So, the girlfriend, her kids and I are sitting down to a nice Tivo'd showing of "Pee-Wee's Playhouse," earlier tonight bellies full from a wonderful dinner cooked by yours truly, and the phone rings. Now, I thought we were on a "no-call" list, but we've taken in a few telemarketer calls over the last two weeks, and I was spoilin' for an angry phone conversation, so I pick up the call from "DCS, Inc," whose phone number is 541-956-8822, ready to have a satisfying back and forth with someone selling something. Instead, a woman with a southern accent asks if this is (girlfriend's name)'s house, then hurriedly asks if my girlfriend knows where a "Sarah" is. Knowing that my gf is friends and works with a woman named "Sarah," and that she had enjoyed a long phone conversation with her earlier that day, I dropped the phone off on her, thinking it to have nothing to do with a telemarketer. So, this is what the woman on the other line tells my gf: There is a child, named Sarah, missing in our neighborhood. "Sarah" is the woman on the phone's son ("er, I mean, daughter" seriously, she says this), and she lives in a house that is three houses down the street from us. My girlfriend asks the usual, oh-crap-there's-a-missing-kid-this-is-horrible questions, she's scared and upset, all while trying to get more info out of this lady to, y'know, HELP FIND THIS MISSING CHILD. The lady on the other end keeps dropping the same line, "if you see or talk to Sarah, who I think lives at 3803 blah-blah-Court" (we live at 3800), "please call me, I'm Nicole, at this number" ... my girlfriend is getting weirded-out. Wait, you live in the same house as your daughter? Nicole: If you see her, call me at that number. When did you last see this girl? Nicole: If you see her, call me at that number. I'm confused, do you live at 3803? Nicole: If you see her, call me at that number. I'll try to skip past all the confusing parts (too late, I know), but the gist is this: Somebody from (our guess) a debt collecting company is having a hard time getting a neighbor of ours (that we don't know) to pay a bill, and decided to look up the numbers of other people on our block, concoct a poorly-thought out lie about a MISSING FREAKIN' CHILD, in order to see if she could glom any info about this Sarah woman (not a child) and figure out if we know her (we don't). Meanwhile, as horrible as the phone set-up is, my girlfriend leaves our house at 9pm, just in case, in rain/thunder/lightning, to go through yards and look for a missing kid that doesn't exist for twenty minutes. I couldn't talk her out of it, she's one of those "nice people" that I've heard about, and I'm pissed. This bill collector can't get a bill paid, decides to improvise and call a neighbor three doors down and tell them a scary-as-f@ck story (we had a nasty storm here tonight, the worst in months), in order to find out if the debtor (who, we assume, is not picking up their phone) is home. I know very little of this made sense, but I'm more than a little ticked for what my girlfriend had to go through -- she isn't naive, but just wanted to make sure ... in a frickin' lightning storm, more than pissed that someone would toy with someone's feelings like that while making ten bucks an hour, and you better frickin' believe that I'm not done dealing with this crap.
Yeah, I would seriously report that. My brother has all sorts of debt collectors looking for him and he used my address once like 7 years ago and I still get calls once every 2 weeks. I get into shouting matches with these people all the time. They're very persistent and rude. But Ive never had that happen.
After 20 minutes of web searching, I found out where the business is located, and talked with the local police department. I'm going to have a back and forth with the top guy at the company tomorrow (someone at the police department knew him personally and vouched for him), and see if I can get some satisfaction. Weird night, though. In the span of one hour, I'm going from talking to the Hornets' GM about Desmond Mason, and hashing it out with police officers in California. Harrassing people who owe money is enough ... but now their neighbors?
Strangely, this is allowed by the federal government... http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/fdc.htm May a debt collector contact anyone else about your debt? If you have an attorney, the debt collector must contact the attorney, rather than you. If you do not have an attorney, a collector may contact other people, but only to find out where you live, what your phone number is, and where you work. Collectors usually are prohibited from contacting such third parties more than once. In most cases, the collector may not tell anyone other than you and your attorney that you owe money. At least they can only call you this once. Sounds like the caller did it by the book. Most definitely a very screwed up way of doing it. I'm sure they could have come up with a story that doesn't scare the crap out of someone...
As far as I know, there are laws regulating what debt collectors can and cannot do and officials in charge of enforcing these laws. Don't know who it is in your state... maybe the Secretary of State? You can probably find out with a google search or a few phone calls. Anyhow, I think you can at least try and lodge a complaint about it... The Better Business Bureau probably has some ways for you to complain about them, too. If not, there's always the media... I'll bet some local reporter wouldn't mind doing a piece exposing them.
Wow, that's a strange story to make up just for some information on a debtor. I got called once by a bill collector who wanted to know about a neighbor who owed money but atleast the caller told me straight up. Lodge a complaint and tell your gf to not be so nice
You're probably right. Sadly. Just like you can't prosecute someone for prank calling (at least if they do it only once) I guess you can't call this illegal. Still though, I'd talk to someone higher up in the company. It might be company policy so that won't help but it might not and they'll get fired.
They can call you, according to that website, but only to ask for certain info (address, etc). However, the page says nothing about doing so under false pretenses. Besides, even if it's legal, I'd still think a local reporter would have a field day with it.
I am not so sure that it is "perfectly legal". This sounds very much like the sort of fine print that Hewlett-Packard was spinning about their private investigator getting info on board members. What has been a "common practice" is now being investigated by the Feds, a congressional sub-committee, the Cal. attorney general, etc... This could also be looked at from the angle of a false missing child report - there have been prosecutions based on the Amber laws (Amber Alert program). They may not have crossed the line by contacting you - but I think they are way over the line both ethically and legally with the "missing child" story. You might consider contacting a local beat writer about their practices in addition to the BBB (just to get it on their record).
I think I may be hurt by the fact that it wasn't actually me that they were after. Either way, tomorrow goes: 1. Evil, missing child company (DCS, Inc, btw) 2. Oregon police officers (who I talked to for a spell tonight). 3. BBB
Yeah, they can get fined and penalized for their crookedness. Also google debt verification if you're the target of a hard to cover debt.
i don't THINK there's any question that you're not the injured party in this thing. but help your neighbor (and everyone else in the world) out. crap like this needs to be stopped.
Some dude calls my house. Asks me if I live at my address. SURE, I said. He says he is with Ford Motor Co., and that the neighbor across the street hasn't responded to his calls, and that I give him a message. My questions to him: "Why do you have to bother me, man?" (nicely), to which he replies: "I am not being a crook or someone who is bothering too many people, and would not like to have a bill go past my due date if that were me, and you sound like you could help a neighbor just settle it, regardless of how much they owe or what the issue is about." I was all . I told him "look, please don't call me again. If there is an issue you'd have to resolve with my neighbor, please have the decency to use the correct way without bothering me. Yes, we're neighbors; yes, we help each other; yes, we'd like each other to get out of debt, but I was in the middle of my dinner, man. You DO understand, right?" That freaker asked: "Well, I apologize for that, sir. Would you please give him my number and tell him it's from Ford Motor Company? It appears to me [and he was right on the money with this] that you really WOULD like to help your neighbor repay his debt. A simple message to him from me would suffice. At least we'll know we've made an effort and you have helped." Again, . This freaker figured me out quickly. I didn't want to get into my neighbor's business, but I did go over and told him: "Dude... I don't want to do this, but... [told him the entire phone conversation]." He actually thanked me. He said that he'd fix it with Ford, and that he was looking at other companies to help him pay for it, but that Ford had not heard anything about it. He said he was glad it was me and not other neighbors who may not have even come over to tell him someone had called for him. Bottom line, I am not that these collectors can do that, it made me mad that he disturbed my dinner.
That's actually against regulations. They can contact other people to try to track you down but they can NOT tell them the reason is that you owe them money. I would be very pissed if some company called all the people I know and my employers and let them know my personal business.
I think it's probably likely that bill collectors are attempting to use public shaming to get people to pay up. You know, let the entire neighborhood know you haven't been paying your bills. People are getting more savvy to bill collection techniques, it's like escalation in an arms race.
