Collection Agency Voicemail messages

I received calls like this at work that were left on my voice mail. I always thought it was kind of dumb, cause like you said, anyone would or could listen to it. My voice mail greeting does start out giving my name and I thought that was how they got around leaving it. Now, if yours doesn't give any identifying info, it does seem like they could potentially be in the wrong. If they have your phone number, then it seems like they could get other info like employment, address, etc. How long have they been calling?

Yes, it is illegal for any creditor or collector to leave open messages for anyone to hear. They can only state who they are and who they are trying to contact. Keep the recordings/messages that they left. You may need them to 'make a deal'.

They have been calling a couple times a week for a couple of months and a second one just started with almost exactly the same message as the first one.

In regards to the SOL, if you have expired the time on the debt, you legally do not have to pay, but they can still seek you out to pay it. Just ignore them, I would, and send them a cease and desist order, via certified mail. You can visit my site, and on the side is a link to a sample letter. Hope I helped a little.

I forgot to ask; which collection agency is calling you?

Wouldn't a cease and desist letter constitute a contact so they can start the SOL over again if it is not quite past? I don't know what the SOL is in Florida. I have heard that some collection agencies falsify point of last contact dates to keep the debt alive anyway.

Contact does not restart the clock, only making a payment does.

If any collection agency falsifies their records to restart a SOL clock, trust me, it will become known, due to having to produce a method of payment. Not only would they face fraud charges, but also the banking commission of their state and your state would become involved.

Since the Secret Service covers crossing state lines fraud, as well as the FBI, not many collectors would opt to make up a fake payment or SOL restart.

AACC which is Asset Acceptance is the new one but I am not sure about the other one since the caller ID only says not provided. One caller ID said M P S ATMS. I turned off my voicemail yesterday so they can't leave anymore messages since anyone that really needs to get in touch with me has my cell phone number.

If you visit my site, I have a lnik to the Secret Service and the FBI, and their website explains more about this.

link, I meant.

Does anyone know how to get the Evil big three Credit Aeporting Agencies to take items off your report that are over seven years old?

You may already know this, but alot of crooked collectors often change their name to throw consumers and enforcement agencies off of their trail, such as Bass and Associates were formerly Ellis Crosby and Associates, and other names that they had.

Send them this letter, and they must provide full information about the debt to you:

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This letter should be sent via certifies mail to prove that they recieved it, it also includes an order to stop all contact with you, except to validate, fully, the debt.

I think the collectors must have gotten my phone Number and my address off of my credit report when Drive Time rported my buying a car about 2 1/2 years ago. It was shortly after that, that I started getting collection letters again but the phone calls only started recently. I am currently getting letters from NCO, Arrow, Asset Acceptance and RMS which is Receivables Mangement Solutions which states their client as NCO. These debts keep being sold from one collector to another.

Sounds like bottom feeder agencies. Don't let these guys get to you. Just send them the above letter, and they will have no choice, but to either drop it, or jump through the hoops to make it a legal amount. Either way, if the time is up on it, tell them to fuk off.

I have been getting messages like that too...if you are not Sassnlucy please do not listen to this message......I personally do not call places back if I don't know who they are. Let them call all they want. Luckily I haven't been getting them at work, only at home.

I don't know what the Florida SOL is so I'm not sure if its past or not but I do know there should not be any point of contact with anyone since about May of 1998 when My ex wife and I separated. I gave up trying to get them to be reasonable at that point. Oh by the way my ex and I had been to Consumer credit counseling and the guy there went over everything and said we needed about $600. more income a month and so we gave up trying to deal with it because I was already working too hard of a job to take on a second one.

Don't wait until they do begin calling you at work. Just talk to a person who works for them, and find out their mailing address, then send them the letter of validation, which includes a cease and desist letter.

Back in 1998 I got a couple of calls at work from the original credit card companies and I told them it was illegal so they stopped.

It is only illegal if you tell them that you are not allowed to get calls at work, and they persist. That is why cease and desist letters, sent certified work, because it shows proof that they have knowledge of not being able to call you. The original creditors do not have to abide by a cease and desist letter, but collection agencies must. Big difference.

I'm not going to make any kind of contact whatsoever until I'm sure its been 10 years since the last contact I made in May 1998.

As an example, if you buy a bike from a store, and you fall behind on payments, they can call you or send letters, demanding payment, and there is not much you can do, unless they call outside of the allowed times, or times inconvenient to your life style. But if it goes to collections, then you can order them to cease all contact.

You should read your state laws on SOL's. Contact is not a clock starter, just making a payment is. You have a right to cease their contact of you.

I think all of those debts were written off or charged off long ago by the Credit Card companies and were all bought by the above mentioned collection agencies.

Then you need to send that validation letter, and they will be forced to research it. This will at least get them to stop calling you. You have nothing to lose.

Is Orlando nice this time of year? I am in Alaska, and it's cloudy and slightly chilly.

Orlando is great this time of year. It's not too hot yet and the cold snaps are done

I replied to this once but it didn't post. Orland is great. It's not hot yet and the cold snaps are done. Thank you for the letter and all the info!

No problem, what did you think of the China sattelite story?

I had not heard that news but, I agree with you whole heartedly. An attack on another countries satellites should be considered an act of aggression!

Absolutely.

I must admit, right out of the gate, that I am with a collection agency. There, now that this has been said...I wonder why the "guest" from Florida would be so concerned to dodge a debt that she admits to owing long ago. You didn't have the money back then and the situation was that they were going for big payments, but here we are many years later and your biggest concern is dodging the debt, essentially. AnthonyLemons, whose advice seems rather reliable, advises you to ignore them. Gee, why not just pay them? You can get a heck of a reduced amount to settle the account.

As for the messages, Mr. Lemons, I would refer you to look into Foti vs. NCO Group. It is a conflicting matter that shows the weaknesses of the fdcpa. NCO left a message on their recorder. Foti sued because on the machine, NCO did not indicate that the communication was from a debt collector. This goes against all of the norms of collector knowledge and training, right? Foti won. Now the American Collectors Association nor the FTC will render any advice or comment on the matter. Now, this past week, I read of a suit-- consumer suing agency for stating that they were calling to collect a debt. They said what it was found in the Foti case to be missing, and they are getting sued for third party disclosure. Obviously you have some type of consumer-driven website to help, maybe you and yours will want to coordinate with the ACA to help develop the laws that will come to affect this exact issue in the future. So, according to case law, what you said about messages left is both right and wrong.

After 15 years, I have never heard of the Secret Service being involved in fraud or collection agencies at all. It is the Attorneys General, the banking commissions (as you mentioned) and local law enforcement that gets involved in investigating agency activities (as well as the FTC if you are in real trouble).

Please note, and you will see by other posts I have done on this site, that I am very much opposed to the stereotyping of collectors and am with an agency which strives to be the opposite. We feel we try to help people, and despite the mistreatment our collectors endure, which you never hear about, we do try to help. In our training we stress that we are all debtors in some way and mutual respect is the only proper method at our company. Now, we do not necessarily attract the high-level Ivy League educated types, so we have renegades that fall through the cracks and either take a hard approach or respond to consumer tension in the wrong way.

I am seeing more and more SOL accounts make their way into the collection market, largely due to the amount of debt sales of course being so high. Wouldn't it be prudent and even somewhat moral to advise consumers to negotiate a low settlement on an past stat account rather than showing them the door and little hiding places? The stat can run out after 4 to 6 years, but remain on the bureaus for another few years. Getting it settled would be beneficial to the credit report and I would think you would be offering a better quality of advice.

Bill T,You make some very valid points in your post. One of the main reasons I would object to paying a debt in sol is if your state allows it,the sol could be reset and you would end up in court.Another reason is if it was old enough to drop from report,it could end up being put back on there for another 7 years.

Normally when I see collection on a old debt,I weigh the advantages of paying/not paying.If you have a debt where you can get a written agreement that settlement will be paid in full and either removed or not reported to credit bureaus,Then I would go ahead and pay it so you are not bothered when that debt is resold.

Bill T: If you are confident in your words, then by all means, register with the site. I don't like your style. You never knew the Secret Service was involved in your last 15 years, because they do not officially attach them selves to cases, they let the other agencies take the credit. Research before you try to make a fool of someone. I don't like you, because you lurk at this site, just waiting to pounce on consumers who are in a discussion. You want someone to pay on a debt that is expired per SOL? What kind of a jackass are you? You will soon see, if you have not figured it out, that I refuse to be politically correct and tell it like I see it. If you do not register here, yet continue to put in your comments, then don't bother commenting at all, you have no credibility, now go harrass some consumer.

Does anyone know why a collection agency would keep calling, asking if you are their, when you get on the phone they hang up? What is the purpose of this?

Complete harassment. That is a tactic used to beat a consumer via telephone. They hope that one gets so tired of these repeated phone calls, that you will give in and make contact.

Bill T. Collector, if it weren't a purchased debt, I would agree it would be best to settle, or still inside the SOL. But with purchased debts, and debts on which the SOL has run, the CAs are rolling the dice and looking for free money, in short, to rip off the consumer. Also, if anything probably harm the persons CR if payed.

I agree Foti vs NCO Group is a bit interesting.

fedup, if that continues, I would sue under the fdcpa, for continuous calls only to annoy you.

I don't care what case is quoted by our Bill T, who lacks credibility. Each case is unique and with its own specifics. This isn't some guideline that all courts must adhere to. Every state, every court, have different views of every case brought before them. I will tell you this, I will never advise anyone to sit on their ass and continue to be harassed and be a victim of extortion. I advise anyone being harassed to take action, with or without some Foti vs. NCO group case. Don't let some Bill T come here and cause you to lose strength in your rights, because that is why he left a comment, to make people question their rights. Disregard this sub-human's opinion, it is obvious who's side he is on. I DO stereotype collectors, because they mostly are made up of scum.

Regarding leaving messages on answering machines, would leaving a recorded message count after you send a C&D? Alliance One contacted me about a medical debt that wasn't mine. I actually sent two DV letters along with a C&D and they never did validate. That was at least 2 years ago. They still call about once a month and there is a recorded message asking them to call me. Is this illegal?

scooter,if you have sent your dv letter and a c&d,they have no valid reason to call you. I would have given them one call to rule out bona fide error defense.Multiple calls are a complete violation of law.Get you a lawyer and drag them to court.

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Scooter: Did you send these letters via certified mail, to prove that they signed for it? If you did, then you can show a judge, or a lawyer, that you acted per law. If you did not send it certified, then get one mailed out right now via certified, and hold on to the tracking number.

Save those recordings though.

Mr. Lemons, it is so interesting to read of your juvenille name-calling. I can understand that it takes that type thing to make you, a mere loud-mouth with an online college degree, to make you feel like a big man. Certainly I feel the consumers have rights, and I have asserted that all along (perhaps your inability to digest what you read leaves you at a deficit) that there are agencies that are not necessarily operating fairly. The only thing I don't see here is that people should pay their bills. Obviously, dear Tony, you have a 521 credit score that plagues your pathetic life and you live to justify your own inability to get a life and make more than $10 an hour.

Enjoy your life of posting wise-cracks from your mom's basement and Long Life The Debt Collector you greaseball.

Didn't you just say something about Anthony's juvenile name calling?? Wouldn't calling him a greaseball fall into that category as well? Or describing his life as pathetic?
No one on this board promotes not paying bills that are legitimately owed Bill, I think we are all in agreement that once it is established that we are paying the correct party for the correct debtthe best thing to do is to pay the debt off...

Bill t,here you are again with you badmouthing people when I have already told you we do not tell people to not pay their debts.We simply inform them of their legal rights concerning collection of debts. Here is my scores to give you a good idea on how on top of my game I stay.


Your FICO score from Experian :
809
March 17, 2007

Your FICO score from Equifax :
770
March 17, 2007

Your FICO score from
TransUnion :
788
March 17, 2007

Cajun-- I am glad we meet again, however, I have not badmouthed on here before. I have been posting postive things to assist, and you yourself commented positively on those posts. How about your intervention in Anthony's attacks on me? Where is the mediator in you?

Nice scores indeed!