For the last five months or so, I have been receiving unmarked calls on my cellphone. I make it a policy not to answer unmarked calls on my phone as those sorts of things are customarily telemarketing or scams. About three months ago I began getting some strange messages.
The first set was from a tired-sounding lady with a heavy Jersey accent telling me to call such-and-such number for important information and that it was not a sales call. The second set was from a brusque man with the same regional accent saying more or less the same thing, with only a very slight alteration in the phone number.
Today, around 11am CST, the tone of the phone calls I had been receiving took a nasty turn. A different gentleman, same accent, was snapping into the phone that "several representatives" (if by several you mean, like, two?) had tried repeatedly to reach "a person at this number" and that "if you are an ADULT, please call back, if this is a wrong number we need to know. Again, I want to speak to an adult. The number is 877-774-7990."
Curious by now - and more than a little annoyed by what I perceived as harassment - I decided to call the number and see who it was, and then request that they stop calling me permanently. The man on the other end introduced himself as a Richard of MRS Associates, and when I told him why I had called, he transferred me to a man who called himself "Bobby Morgan."
The first thing this man did was request my social security number.By that point I was honestly wondering if I had unwittingly walked into some kind of scam. I have been raised by my parents to NEVER give out such sensitive information over the phone, so I remained silent.
He then requested my phone number. Since they obviously already had that or they couldn't have called me... I gave it to him.
He went on to tell me that this was in regards to my JCPenney account - an account for which I had not received a statement since October when I had changed addresses - and asked me why I had not answered all the calls they had made (which I wish I had archived because these people sent me on average two or three of these calls a day if not more). I proceeded to explain to him that I had had no idea they were a collection agency as the number was totally unmarked.
At this point the conversation took a 180-degree turn as "Bobby Morgan" went from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde in about five seconds flat. He started berating me loudly, telling me that JCPenney and MRS Associates had made repeated attempts to send me literature and that I had simply ignored them, and he demanded to know why.
I told him I was telling the truth, and furthermore, that I was at this moment in time unemployed. He immediately jumped on this. "We have your social security number, Miss — . We have access to all your activity in the last five months, and you've been employed since then, yet you made no attempt to pay on this debt."
I tried my best to explain that other, more immediate obligations had seen that money gone by the wayside fairly quickly, but he was having none of that. He then proceeded to throw line after line of thinly veiled threats at me. The main one he seemed to stick to was this: "When you used your card, you were borrowing money from JCPenney's lender. What you're doing, what you're doing, you know what that is, that's stealing."
He couldn't seem to keep his story straight, either. MRS Associates was mentioned to me exactly once, and that was by the person that picked up the phone when I had initially called. Though at the beginning I was told that the account had been turned over to them by JCPenney, most of the time he kept saying that he was representing a bank and that if I didn't pay them within the next half-hour, in full (though he later changed this to minus interest), then he would "be recommending that we take action against you."
I asked him on at least four different moments throughout the conversation what he meant by this. At no point when I asked did he ever answer the question directly.
When I told him I had never received a single piece of literature warning me that they had picked up my account from JCPenney and that I didn't want them to call me anymore, he threw a fit.
"How are we supposed to get in touch with you if this is the only number you have?" That's not my problem. You now have the correct address for me. It's called the post office. Send me a letter. "We don't have to do that. This is the last stop before I recommend action. I'm sticking my neck out just talking to you like this right now, we can't send you anything else. This is the only way we can contact you."
I also told him I had heard that one cannot collect a debt on a cell phone line?"That's not true, whoever told you that is wrong, we are collecting a debt here and we have the right to call you as often as it takes until you pay us."
He went on that line for several minutes, telling me that he would "do whatever is necessary to collect on this debt."
I have several friends and family, including my significant other and my own mother, who have worked in collections agencies before. As far as I know, this is not in any way considered professional behavior.
I was pretty ticked off, so after an hour of listening to his pointless tirade, I told him outright that he was getting tiresome and that this really wasn't going anywhere. He demanded that I get someone to pay the debt for me. What? I am not going to ask my roommate, who is currently footing the entirety of rent and utilities while I am (a) unemployed and (b) recovering from a back injury sustained in a recent automobile accident, to pay my debts for me.
He then told me that I had better find some way to come up with the money or "action" would be taken. Again, no specification as to what, though litigation was specifically mentioned twice in the course of conversation, so I can only assume that is what he intended to imply.
We had reached either an impasse or an agreement. I wasn't sure which. I was fed up with dealing with someone who adamantly refused to listen to me, so I called the only other person I knew to call - my mother - and we had a little three-way chat. He changed his tune when she started talking, but he came onto the line ready to do battle when my mother mentioned I had been contacted by "a rude collector." Which I had, but he immediately assumed I was referring to him.
In the interim we have agreed to come up with half of a "settlement, " in his words, which is basically the amount owed minus interest, due by 12 noon on Monday the 6th - despite his repeated attempts to persuade my mother to send money immediately by giving out her debit card number. Yeah, sure, some "settlement": the nasty little ultimatum was still present. The cynic in me wonders if they'll even honor the agreement.
Any "concessions" they may have granted do not in ANY way excuse the treatment to which I was subjected. People who owe money are still people. Debtors are protected under federal law from abusive collectors for a reason. The fact that they owe money does not give collection agencies like MRS Associates carte blanche to harass and intimidate just so they can get their commission. If these people want my money, they can use honest means to get it - and I don't mean "bend the law every which way but loose, " either.
(Note: I would leave my real name but at the moment am very afraid of some kind of retaliation, as these people have proven to me they are not above such petty tactics in the slightest. &r)
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