...and to me as well. My father and I own a piece of property together--both of our names are on the title. Younger brother and my father both have the same first and last name, but my brother died in 1999.
About a year ago, my father got a letter addressed to his first name, his last name, complaining about unpaid parking tickets from Chicago. When he looked at the license number on the vehicle, it was for a car my father never owned... When he showed it to me, I recognized the license # as belonging to my dead brother.
My dad called them up and said this person died in 1999, and further, several of the tickets appear to have been issued AFTER he died and the vehicle had been sold and transferred to another person. After discussing it with the person who answered the phone, she said she'd "Look into it" and took down his name, mailing address and phone number... but when she asked for my dad's SSN, he said "Why do you need that?" And he got back some
**** and bull reply about record-keeping. So he made up an SSN. He followed up a couple times, didn't hear anything for three months or so, and simply decided to ignore it.
Flash forward about six months, same organization now starts mailing letters to my father about tickets issued to my dead brother of the same name, and the collections letters reference the bogus SSN my dad gave them.
So, yes, the sleazier collections agencies will indeed try to force debts onto other people... It is a game. At some point, they're hoping to find a person who has enough money and a high-enough credit score that it isn't worthwhile for them to fight it, and they just pay.
****Adult term removed - Jason