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Blocking Annoying Cell Phone Callers?
RobertB-DC asks: "Twice a week, for the past several months, I receive a call on my cell phone, from a 'Restricted' number. It's always the same: 'Please hold for an important non solicitation message.' It then tells me to call 1-800-842-0640 for further instructions. When I call (from a CID-blocked work phone), all I can get from them is the company name: NCO. They won't tell me more about their company unless I tell who I am. Verizon says they can't block the caller. Short of exposing my own identity to someone I don't know, how can I get rid of these annoying calls?" Are there cell phone carriers who are progressive enough to offer call blocking services of some kind?
all I can get from them is the company name: NCO. They won't tell me more about their company unless I tell who I am.
Short of making up a social security number, I see nothing wrong with making up all the personal info you give them.
Dont ask that they kindly block the number, but instead report it as harrassment and threaten leagal charges. Have Verizon put a trace on the calls (you'll have to work with them on that one) to figure out where they're REALLY coming from, then contact the BBB and your state's Attourney General.
As far as I know, making unsolicited calls to a cellphone is illegal since YOU are paying for them to do this to you. Next time they call you, call that 1-800 number and tell them to remove your information from the database and that if they sell it you will press charges.
I know I'd be really pissed if I were in your position.
As everyone says:
.. probably 3 or 4 calls a week.
NCO is a collections agency.
This means that you owe them money (because someone else you owe money has transferred that to them).
This means that you have a business relationship with them (because your debt was transferred from a company that you did have a business relationship with) and they can call your cell phone.
Note: Verizon cannot block the call because it's not CID available. If it were to show on CID, it could quite probably be blocked at the service level - but it can't.
On the other hand: If it is NOT you that they are looking for (I got to deal with this quite a bit when I first got my new cell phone, with it's new #), such as in the case where you have just received a new cell number, then they don't have a right to call you, however, you need to identify yourself to them before they can discover that!
So, if you're not identifying yourself to them because you're trying to avoid the collections agency, you're gonna continue to get phone calls. If you're not the person that they are wanting to collect from, then you have to identify yourself to them, so that they will stop calling you.
I had every utility company in this state calling my cell phone trying to reach the guy that used to have the number.. and it took a good 3 or 4 months of sending calls to voicemail, with a message saying "This is NO LONGER THE PHONE NUMBER FOR -former owner's name-. If you are looking for him, please do not call back."
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
These people are a collection agency, and as such they're exempt from telemarketing call rules. I had a situation with these same people at one point in the past - they were calling my cell phone daily, but with a live person instead of a recording. After telling them to "fuck off" for two weeks, and still getting the calls, I explained that if they continued to call I would start deducting $10 per call from my debt for my phone use and work time, but if they'd stop calling my cell then I might consider starting to pay the debt they were trying to collect. The calls stopped immediately.
BTW - it's exceptionally likely that you phoned them from your cell at some point - that's almost always how they acquire cell numbers. The problem is that they can now propogate that phone number along with all their other records of you. Unless I'm mistaken, that means they can include your cell # when reporting to credit reporting groups... Which would mean that every company with access to your credit record (all current debts and credit sources, etc) will have your cell #.
j
If it's NCO the collections agency, and *YOU* are the debtor they're after, you've probably got them nailed.
Third-Party collections agencies (professional debt collectors) are bound by federal law called the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). This stipulates that they cannot disclose any debt to anyone but the debtor and the creditor; hence, the stonewalling until they find out who you are. Even telling somebody that they know who you are can be a violation, since how would they know you if you didn't have a debt in collections?
This is, however, beside the point. The kicker is that the FDCPA prohibits a collector from incurring expenses to the debtor in attempt to collect the debt -- more to the point, they cannot call collect or on a cell phone. I've done work for collection agencies before and they're very careful to make sure they never contact a debtor on a cellular phone, since that allows a debtor who knows "the act" to create a legal morass that's more trouble than its worth.
You might as well tell them who you are. If you're not the one they're looking for, they'll take your number off the account and leave you alone. If you *are* the one they're looking for, you can make a stink and they may write off the debt as uncollectable.
I live in the United States, and I NEVER, NEVER lie. The woman that did this was extremely clueless. She called my wife and asked to speak to "Lance or or whatever his name is ". She then called the next day and left a message, which also said to call her LONG DISTANCE. I didn't call her, I called the companies 1-800 number and told somebody else to please not bother me anymore. They haven't. What kind of a fairyland do you live in wherein everbody knows and follows every law and regulation?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
A) Accounts receivable are an asset. And, like any asset, they can be sold.
Sure, they can sell them. And that has absolutely no bearing on why *I* owe money to. Unless the real debtor has given the collection agency a power of attorney its perfectly save to ignore them until you pay back the original debt. I have done it hundreds of times. They dont have a leg to stand on.
Something like this happened to me -- the previous owner of the cell number wasn't paying his bills, and as soon as I got my new cell number, I started getting calls from collection agencies for him. A little explanation stopped the calls. (This was with T-Mobile.)
You also might be able to configure your phone to block calls from caller-id-blocked numbers. The only calls of this type I get are junk.