If I am paying for the minutes on my phone, which I do, then I should be able to chose who's call I do and do not want to answer. When it comes up 'unknown", how do I know it's a Collection Agency, a telemarketer trying to sell me vacation homes, cruse lines trying to sell me a cruse, someone wanting to offer me a better mortgage rate, ect... Every call I answer deducts time from my minutes and that is NOT fair to me. I now block ALL "unknown, withheld & private" calls. If they truly are legidimate and want to talk to me, press 1 to unblock, just like I have to.
No matter how you slice this conversation, phone calls are the biggest abuse. You can have rules and do about the time, but they are ignored. Until you or the FTC creates rules that fine these people -- and not put the burden on the consumer to sue -- this abuse will go on. I have to laugh at these querstions. You have to be putting me on. The most abusive things debt collectors do are with their phones. They block their numbers still. They use various numbers they mislead their identities. THE PROBLEM is the onus is on the hapless consumer to get legal redress. Not good enough.You need to create fines and actually impose them. That will stop this phone abuse. They call at work, always wkill have some excuse. Oh, this was the only number we had. and call after hours. Well we are in California. Please. Be honest, this is an outrage what these companies have done, and nobody has minded the store on them. Never should the onus be on the consumer to get this to stop. You have to find a lawyer who thinks a whopping $1,000 is worth suing over. Please. You have rigged this system in favor of the sharks., and that is why these sleazy companies have proliferated and have grown more and more egregious in their actions.
What you need to do is 1) no more recorded calls. 2) call from one number and 3) as soon as someone says stop calling, STOP. if there is any call beyond that, they get fined.
Agreed, people will have to write a letter because none of these companies will admit they were told to stop calling. But they do receive the letters, which should go to a physical address and to a person, not just a vague company name.
Last, stop allowing these bad companies to change their names. They get in trouble, they change their names, and go on doing terrible things under another name.
Just look online at some of these companies and how many names they've gone through.
The reason this got so bad is nobody has been looking out for the consumer.
Why are these questions putting the onus, once again, one the consumer? It is the collectors who have harassed in the name of collecting a debt.
It is pretty easy to distinguish landline from cellphone -- google the number, that tells you. But creditors use recorded calling, that should be stopped. If they have a well-trained person, that person ought to be able to determine the time zone the consumer lives in. I agree with the previous comment. Creditors should assume the current mailing address is the correct one. How difficult is it to go from there in assessing the times that are appropriate to make calls?
I have a problem with the security of email clients from everyday hackers. Remember the recent Yahoo email accounts that were compromised by hackers? This was a huge concern for many of Yahoo’s email users. Imagine the kind of materials and personal information that hackers would have if SSN’s and/or other sensitive and PII that were included in the emails of debt collectors. I further worry about the uptick in fake collection companies that have been capitalizing of the economic down turn and calling people who may have suffered a loss during this down turn. These downturn victims have been turning money over left and right to fake collection companies who were pretending to be collecting on legitimate debts. Now imagine email accounts getting hacked into and the hackers having access to all of the debt collection information at a debtor might have had setting in their inbox, and then comes along a new fake debt collection company…aka..the hackers..who then try to collect on a debt. These sorts of things worry me if use of emails could be used.
Evil Empire 58
1
If I am paying for the minutes on my phone, which I do, then I should be able to chose who's call I do and do not want to answer. When it comes up 'unknown", how do I know it's a Collection Agency, a telemarketer trying to sell me vacation homes, cruse lines trying to sell me a cruse, someone wanting to offer me a better mortgage rate, ect... Every call I answer deducts time from my minutes and that is NOT fair to me. I now block ALL "unknown, withheld & private" calls. If they truly are legidimate and want to talk to me, press 1 to unblock, just like I have to.
View this comment in the discussion thread
gmt512
2
No matter how you slice this conversation, phone calls are the biggest abuse. You can have rules and do about the time, but they are ignored. Until you or the FTC creates rules that fine these people -- and not put the burden on the consumer to sue -- this abuse will go on. I have to laugh at these querstions. You have to be putting me on. The most abusive things debt collectors do are with their phones. They block their numbers still. They use various numbers they mislead their identities. THE PROBLEM is the onus is on the hapless consumer to get legal redress. Not good enough.You need to create fines and actually impose them. That will stop this phone abuse. They call at work, always wkill have some excuse. Oh, this was the only number we had. and call after hours. Well we are in California. Please. Be honest, this is an outrage what these companies have done, and nobody has minded the store on them. Never should the onus be on the consumer to get this to stop. You have to find a lawyer who thinks a whopping $1,000 is worth suing over. Please. You have rigged this system in favor of the sharks., and that is why these sleazy companies have proliferated and have grown more and more egregious in their actions. What you need to do is 1) no more recorded calls. 2) call from one number and 3) as soon as someone says stop calling, STOP. if there is any call beyond that, they get fined. Agreed, people will have to write a letter because none of these companies will admit they were told to stop calling. But they do receive the letters, which should go to a physical address and to a person, not just a vague company name. Last, stop allowing these bad companies to change their names. They get in trouble, they change their names, and go on doing terrible things under another name. Just look online at some of these companies and how many names they've gone through. The reason this got so bad is nobody has been looking out for the consumer.
View this comment in the discussion thread
gmt512
3
Why are these questions putting the onus, once again, one the consumer? It is the collectors who have harassed in the name of collecting a debt. It is pretty easy to distinguish landline from cellphone -- google the number, that tells you. But creditors use recorded calling, that should be stopped. If they have a well-trained person, that person ought to be able to determine the time zone the consumer lives in. I agree with the previous comment. Creditors should assume the current mailing address is the correct one. How difficult is it to go from there in assessing the times that are appropriate to make calls?
View this comment in the discussion thread
stopwithspoofedcallerID
4
I have a problem with the security of email clients from everyday hackers. Remember the recent Yahoo email accounts that were compromised by hackers? This was a huge concern for many of Yahoo’s email users. Imagine the kind of materials and personal information that hackers would have if SSN’s and/or other sensitive and PII that were included in the emails of debt collectors. I further worry about the uptick in fake collection companies that have been capitalizing of the economic down turn and calling people who may have suffered a loss during this down turn. These downturn victims have been turning money over left and right to fake collection companies who were pretending to be collecting on legitimate debts. Now imagine email accounts getting hacked into and the hackers having access to all of the debt collection information at a debtor might have had setting in their inbox, and then comes along a new fake debt collection company…aka..the hackers..who then try to collect on a debt. These sorts of things worry me if use of emails could be used.
View this comment in the discussion thread