<p>I doubt your call was from a bank, and as others have said. most likely from a debt collection agency. I also wouldn’t give out any information over the phone or the Internet. Honestly, you really cannot verify whoever is on the other line. They can claim to be whoever they want to be.</p>
<p>My company has these automated calls that they make out to people who we sent information to but didn’t hear anything back from… and it’s a recording and it goes something like… this is blah blah calling for so and so… if you are them press 1… if you are not them, you can place this call on hold by pressing 2 to go get them, if they are not available and you would like a message please press 3… then if you press 1 it says something like we are following up on blah blah, if you have questions press 4 and we’ll connect you to someone in our office to help you out… if you press 2 it puts them on hold and they have to push 2 again to bring them back, and if you press 3 to leave a message it says something like we are calling to follow up on blah blah if you have questions and it leaves a number… It’s kind of a funky system but it seems to work and it doesn’t seem to be making our customers mad, that I can tell anyway. It only makes one attempt. We always tell them when we send them something that we’ll follow up with them in a few days and it’s up to them at that point to say oh okay or no please don’t. We used to manually call the people ourselves but you’d reach a bunch of people who didnt’ really want to talk to you, so at least this way they are pushing a button to opt into talking to you and are much more plesant.</p>
<p>Tell them that they got the wrong number and stop calling you. It is a good idea to record the phone call, if you can. And when you call back better use Skype, a pay phone, or caller ID blocking.
I’ve read a n article regarding on this issue.
It was stated that the Obama administration’s deficit reduction program, if approved, will allow debt collectors to call mobile phones of borrowers with delinquent federally-backed loans. These debts consist of most mortgages, back taxes and federal school loans. At this time, collectors are only permitted to call landline phones. But sooner debt collectors can legally contact you on your cell phone.</p>
<p>Here’s the proof: [Administration</a> proposal allows federal debt collectors to call cell phones](<a href=“Personal Money Network”>Personal Money Network).</p>
<p>This is an old thread and an unwelcome development since the callee pays for airtime. What I do on my phone is add pictures for the people that regularly call me. If I don’t see a picture on a call, then I have to decide whether or not to take the call. If I decide not to take it, then I review the number later to see if I should call the person back.</p>
<p>I give out my Google Voice number and it does have a global spam filter and asks you if it should block know spam callers (I selected yes). You can also set up blacklists for numbers that call multiple times. I get maybe one spam call per year.</p>
<p>My daughter gets more spam calls and texts though. I suspect that the previous owner of the number had a higher mobile-phone profile. She ignores unknown numbers and unknown sources for calls and texts.</p>
<p>Hello, debt collectors have been calling me for YEARS on my cell phone! It turns out the previous “owner” of my cell number must have had a lot of unpaid debt. H was very persistent in tracking down the callers and explaining to them that a new person has the number, no knowledge of Claudia whatshername, etc. etc. and they finally stopped. Still, I’ll get a call every 6 months or so for her. </p>
<p>Also, on my landline most of the spam callers have a caller ID that says, “private caller” or “out of area”. Easy to avoid, except that when my sister calls from Sweden it also comes up as “private caller” or “out of area”. I let the machine answer most of the time and hover nearby in case it’s her. Too bad she can’t call me on my cell - we are so behind here in proper cell phone technology and usage fees! </p>
<p>I wish so much that the do not call list covered everyone! I’m tired of “surveys” that are thinly disguised advertisements too. But those police and veterans groups are the worst, they just never stop calling!</p>
<p>I have a new tactic that I’ve been using lately for charity solicitations, which is to say, “We are no longer accepting any more telephone solicitations at all because of the number of calls we receive. You can send a request by mail.” I’m even using this now for charities that I’ve donated to before, because I’m fed up with their phony list of questions before they get to the ask.</p>
<p>Greenwitch,
My daughter also gets collection agency calls on her cell for the same reason. </p>
<pre><code> At our home we continued to get calls for some guy we’d never heard of until I googled the agency and discovered that they had been fined many times by the FTC for deliberately calling people about debts that they did not owe, and in names other than the householders. Apparently, some people get so frustrated that they actually pay the debt just to get rid of the caller! I called the agency, told them that I’d notified the FTC, and never heard from them again.
</code></pre>
<p>One of my first jobs was for a collection agency. Worst job I ever had, lasted only a few months. They are instructed to call neighbors, relatives and anyone else who might know the debtor. The only way to deal with this is to tell them firmly, "I have no information for you and if you call again I will notify the FTC’ and then hang up. If you engage in any sort of conversation, they will be persistence. After you hang up a few times, they will stop.</p>
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<p>I refuse to give out any money over the phone. I want to see information in my hand. If they can afford to make phone calls, they can afford to mail me information. I just tell them my policy is to never give out money over the phone. Besides, how do you really know who you are actually talking to?</p>
<p>We have privacy director on our phone so that unless the phone number and name of the company is displayed, the call won’t go through, but instead goes to voice mail, where they have to announce themselves. It’s great. I rarely pick up the phone unless it’s someone I know.</p>
<p>I got a call last night (caller ID listed it as “private caller”) from one of those obvious phone banks (you can hear the noise in the background and and they start talking when they get recognition that you are on the phone). Sometimes I answer the phone but dont say anything, just to see what happens. Sometimes I answer and disconnect immediately. Last night the woman, when she finally said something, asked for my DH. I asked who was calling. She went into her schpiel so fast with out taking a breath I yelled “Slow down” and caught that she as collecting for the sheriffs dept or something. I talked over her, told her to remove us from her list and not to call us again. She never stopped talking. I hung up.</p>
<p>I read part of the legislation and it sounds nice but looks like a pain. The idea of a mobile phone to many is that it is a personal device that keeps you in touch with close, personal contacts most of the time, and useful for other purposes. The personal aspect of the phone gets interrupted by interlopers.</p>
<p>The reason for the rules on debt collectors and such is that the way they operate often goes way over the line into harassment and so forth. While someone who is owed a debt has every right to try and reasonably collect on it, they also have the power to abuse that right and also to in effect extort money from people who otherwise might not actually owe anything.</p>
<p>Usually the problem is not the original debt holder, it is when they sell the debt off to a collection agency that problems occur, debt collection agencies are often run by very, very unscrupulous people who don’t have any reputation to uphold or anything (if a bank holding a credit card, for example, got the reputation of harassing people at 2am, threatening people with jail, etc, they would soon find their public image shot, and also probably regulators and representatives frowning at them). Collection agencies are often fly by night, they change their name as often as most people brush their teeth, and also are often financially on the edge themselves,believe it or not.</p>
<p>If allowed, they would call 24 hours a day, they would call friends and loved ones (with the implicit threat of 'don’t want to pay up? Okay, then all your friends and loved ones are going to know you are a deadbeat…aka blackmail), and also continue to harass people long beyond the point where such activity would do anything. And how about people who don’t owe money, who had either a debt in dispute or who had paid it and someone’s records are off, do they deserve to be harassed? Put it this way, when Donald Trump owes a bank billions, they wouldn’t be allowed to use the tactics these slime-o’s use on people…and often, especially if the ‘debt’ is a small one, people will in effect pay them to go away. </p>
<p>I agree that the OP was prob a collection agency. Among other things, if a lender still had the loan, they would probably use a skip tracer or PI to track down someone, assuming the loan was worth it, they wouldn’t waste time calling people like that. If someone called and asked me for that information I would hang up.</p>