Hello. To some of you, I may the scum of the Earth, and no, I don't like what I do for work. What I've noticed in some threads and in real life are many comments of how to deal with debt and reduce it as much as possible if you ever find yourself in a serious collections situation, but because debt collection has so many technicalities and regulations to follow that even vary state-to-state or province-to-province, there are so many misconceptions about what you can really do and when. I'm here to solve your problems and hopefully get to the dirty debate of it all. Here's my ****:

- Worked accounts in US and Canada (not Mexico or any other continent)
- Worked both financial debts (like credit cards) and repo debts (like cars)
- Worked with various companies representing different clients spaced out over a few years, on and off (nobody wants to work collections, so it tends to be an in-between job, we can get in to why this plays a role later)

So here it goes, AMA about debt collection.

Some collection company keeps calling my house and asking for someone I never heard of. Each time I tell them they have the wrong number and ask that they remove my number from their calling list, but they keep on calling. How do I get them to stop?

How do I get them to stop calling me to collect my sibling's debt even after I tell them to stop calling me and they do not?

First of all, **** you.

But seriously, I owe a small amount (<$1000) to a major credit card company from **** I bought when I was younger and dumber (about a year ago lol) and honestly was just too lazy and broke to pay it off.

I just got a small claims suit in the mail from some lawyer. All they want is their money right? Like if I call up the lawyer and say look, I can pay $xxx a month, will they let me out of court and just do it that way? Or is there some kind of added incentive for them to let the small claims court arbitrate that?

Have you grown to hate deadbeats?

how often do you violate the FDCPA?

So there's pretty much two main reasons this would happen other than it being a simple human error or the customer telling the client (whatever company the debit is owed) a fake number:
1. The collector ran out of numbers to call that were previously good numbers, either changed or disconnected, and now has to resort to various search engines or special programs called skip/trace software, (see examples like Lexis Nexis http://www.lexisnexis.com/risk/recei...anagement.aspx or Innovis http://www.cbcinnovis.com/collection_services.html) and now stumbled on your number.
2. You just got a new number or moved to a new address whom the debtor previously owned or lived at, now the collectors are calling you and don't believe that the number's changed.
Number 1 is the most common and easiest to get rid of, by law if these numbers are called once they have to be removed. Which is why in your case I figure number 2 is more likely because companies have legal leeway in this situation and can keep calling sometimes to a max of 15 times, depending on the state/province.

What needs to be realized foremost is that collections agents act within legal bounds >95% of the time, the other 5% is the agents fault, usually intentional, in which if caught and legally pursued, can reap the plaintiff serious rewards. Which is how I can help you guys. Anyways back to the point,

If you want them to stop calling you need not blow up and yell and tell them to stop, because if an agent hears a barrage of words and not a firm response it can legally be passed off as an uncomprehending rant, and not noted and the agent will simply go to the next call. This situation really seems basic but it's tricky because if your number is in a search database that is related to the customers name or previous address, you may still receive calls later the future even if you cancelled it at the time. You need to keep insisting, and keep track of who's calling you by always asking for company name.

The above applies to you the same, but the only difference here is if you were either a co-signer on any of your sibling's contracts for if you live at the same address. If you live at the same address as your sibling then they can always call the house number, if it's your cell phone, then the agent either got it by your sibling giving them your number or your sibling called the agency from your phone (in which the number is stored like a caller-ID, and is allowed to be called in the future since a right party contact was established. If it's the latter, then you can tell them not to call the number.

+1

Do you work for the Northland Group or have you heard anything about them? Some real sonsabitches. They continually call me yet when I call the number to have my cell number removed ( I don't owe anything) they say my phone number is not on their system. What do I do?

edit: n/m see matrat is probably getting calls from these same *******s. thanks for the info.

Could you intentionally default on some payments so you deal with variety of creditors/agencies hoping one of them doesn't follow the regulations and you can sue the **** out them and hit a huge score?

Your chances would obviously be better than the average joe, but can you elaborate on this?

Granted your credit score will plummet in the meantime but what do you estimate the chances of something like this being successful?

Me personally, never, I've actually never had a problem with that or with the legal team they call the "compliance" department, but in the last client I handled which was Capital One Auto Finance, seemed to happen more often than Capital One MasterCard, for some reason. Most of the time they're "mistakes" but could easily be avoided if the agent was careful and attentive. The Auto Finance portfolio was only in the US where as the MC was both US and Canada btw.

I would think phone number portability would cause call time violations. Didn't have to deal w/ that when I was a compliance officer couple decades ago.

Lol believe me, I'm not proud of myself.

First I'd need to know if this was an actual notice to appear or if it was hinting at possible legal action. Collection Agencies often use semantics like that to make it sound like they're about to make a suit. If the former, then, well you're ****ed, and you either gotta pay off your debt or go to court for it, in which you obviously lose and get your wages garnished or equity liquidated, etc, etc.. but I have a feeling that the letter you got was my latter answer, that they're hinting that they're going to go about legal action if they don't get a response from you to settle the debt. What you can do from here is one of two things:
1. If you want to pay your debt, and can't pay it all, you can call in and try to get a settlement. An agreed upon amount paid at once is called a settlement-in-full and will yield the highest savings, 70% of the total amount due is usually the standard. If the settlement is going to be spaced along a payment plan, usually you will have to pay more than 70%.
2 If you don't want to pay your debt and don't care about your credit rating, you can simply not respond to them. After two years of no acknowledgement of the debt from the debtor, the creditor must legally cease attempting to collect the debt. No agency in their right mind would ever go to court over $1000. Think about it and how much time and money they've already spent trying to recover it, and what that $1000 is really worth to them now... More on that later.

Reading Degen Stories in BBV has actually let me open up my heart to them. Degens gonna degen, right?

are you guys astroturfing trying to improve your image?
How many times are you guys going to do this?

OK, I guess? But not really, because I have both calmly and not calmly told them to stop several times. Never co-signed for anything, never lived in the same place, and she definitely never called them from my phone. How do I get them to stop calling my ****ing cell phone 5 times a day?

Is there a more strategic approach to rebuilding your credit/credit rating when you come into a large sum of money and want to pay off all of your debt? Most of mine is dumb-debt from 10-15 years ago and there a little bit of student loans. Nothing major. No car payments or mortgage payments to be in default or anything.

I'm either going to pay it all at once, or be more strategic about it, if that would make a difference.

In case it matters for your response, I live in Vancouver, BC.

About a year and a half ago, I parked in a Safeway parking lot, ran across the street for 15 minutes or so to take care of something, and when I came back I had a parking ticket from one of those ****ty companies that actually patrol Safeway parking lots and give out tickets to people that don't actually go into Safeway and shop.

Ever since, I periodically receive a ****ty recorded telephone message saying something to the effect of, "This is an important personal message for ninetynine99, please call blah blah blah (2 minutes of yakking repeating essentially the same bull****) regarding this important message".

I barely ever answer the phone, just cause that's how I roll, but after about the 20th time or so I actually called back the message and got connected to the parking collection agency, whereupon I hung up. The calls continue to come with the same frequency – one or twice a week and sometimes a week or two might even pass without a call. Seems kinda random actually.

Anyhow, I don't intend to pay the ticket, cause I hate those scummy parking lot ticket places. I'd rather get my telephone number changed.

However, before I do that, do you have any advice as to how to best go about making this company stop calling me?

Thanks.

lol @ a private company writing a parking ticket

BEFORE I CONTINUE, TO AVOID A TON OF CONFUSION LATER WE NEED A 101:

There are two main sections of the collections process; first party and third party.
In first party:
- The customer still is using or owns whatever what was initially borrowed, in other words, the account is still 'open' (eg., you're late on your phone bill or the service was suspended until payment is made).
- The collector is calling the customer as the client, not as the collection agency (eg., "Hello, this is Capital One calling").
- The customers debt is categorized on what is commonly called in the industry, a 'bucket', depending on how many months past due they are. If all their debts are paid within 0-30 days, it sits at the first bucket, most commonly known as an R1. Buckets range from R1 - R5 in first party collections (are the "R's" now making sense as to what the numbers mean?) A credit bureau would then average out a persons ratings and determine what their rating should be. Usually once a debt reaches an R5, and there there has been no established payment arrangement for a reasonable amount of time, and the customer doesn't look like their able going to be able to pay their debt, the creditor then writes the debt off in the books as bad debt and is given to:...

Third Party Collections
- The customer no longer owns whatever was loaned to them or all services are now cancelled (eg., your phone service went from suspended to cancelled, and in order to use your phone again you must open a new account entirely)
- The collector is calling as the collection agency on behalf of the client (eg., "Hello, I'm calling from TakeYourLoot Debt Collection on behalf of Capital One in regards to a debt you had with them." (This is done for legal purposes because technically the debtor is not a customer with the client any more but a customer with the collection agency)
- Bucket ratings now range from R7 - R9, this time not representing the time that the debt is delinquent but the kind of debt it is. R7 is debt being reconciled with credit counseling, R8 is if the person is going through bankruptcy, and R9 is the rating you get when you let a debt go to third party, and usually stays on your report for 7 years at which point it goes to back to an R1.

Being either in first or third party generally greatly changes the way you can settle your debts. In first party, most companies wont even offer settlements, but instead things such as term extensions or payment plans (which don't really save you money but instead only seem to space your payments out evenly and conveniently). If you're looking to make settlements in full as I previously mentioned in an earlier post, you'd have to wait till your debt goes to third party, obviously the downside to this is that you're taking a R9 hit to your credit report. If you have $50k in debt and getting 70% settlement saves you 15k, then maybe you can go for it if you like, and obviously when you make sure your responsibilities and dependents aren't affected by your credit hit. For small debts this method is usually -EV (lol).

The only companies that I know personally are able to settle a debt before it goes to third party have been mobile phone companies, but only in between your service being suspended to being cancelled. That being said:
HINT TO ALL ROGERS WIRELESS CUSTOMERS (Canada)
If you find yourself with a monstrous mobile phone bill that you can't resolve by dispute and Rogers wont budge, simply stay calm, play a little dumb, and wait for your service to be suspended. After a couple days, get in contact with them or wait for them to call you again and make sure you state an obvious legit sounding reason you're behind, such as you're unemployed or a student and between jobs, ask if there's a way to "make a deal" or "try and reduce the amount". Please make sure you play dumb, because the second they think you sound like you know what you're doing they won't give it to you. They call it a Churn Offer specifically in Rogers, but again, don't mention the name of it and play as dumb as possible.

They will say they can only do an 80%/20% split, but the system allows an option to reduce it as low as 60/40, keep going with your sob story and it will happen. Imagine an $800 bill and you only pay 60%! Again, this can ONLY happen in between the time you're suspended till before you're service is cancelled.

My bad, dunno why I did to not see it in the search. Mods close it if you want, I feel less special now anyways.

describe a typical day

and btw don't listen to the haters, I think you're a hero.

Isn't paying it much less hassle?

It's cool that they knew your 2+2 username when calling you, though.

If you come across a lot of money and are able to pay your debts off at once, the only thing I can really suggest that would surely benefit you more than not would be to actually pay the total amount in full instead of making a settlement in full. When you make a settlement, it shows up on a bureau report that the debt was settled, not paid in full, where as obviously having it show paid in full would have a greater affect in rebuilding your credit score.

Degens gonna degen brotha.

Funnily enough, I ran up that cc with 2 deposits to a poker site lol. It's $850, and yes, it was an actual notice to appear in court. I can pay it in full, but my court date is in 2 months and I ain't rushin. Will they allow me to pay in a few installments or will I have to ship the nickels? This is a capital one starter card and its not an agency or anything that's bringing it against me, it's some law office out of Boston. A lawyer's gotta start somewhere, amirite?

Have you ever had people offer you sexual favors to take care of debt?

No.

I have to admit that I was kinda surprised when they used it.

er... so what about my Safeway parking ticket?