The previous owners of my house owned a business which apparently has run into some hard times. I know these people are still local, although I have never met them (two owners before me). I bought this house almost 3 years ago.
I received a rude collection call (are there any other kind?) this afternoon (Sunday) asking for me personally, of XXX company... They were merging my name with the previous owner's company! I told the woman that the company owners were no longer at this address and asked how she got my name, as I was and never had been affiliated with this company.
She said there was a "contract" with my name on it with Alltel, the original company the debt stemmed from. I told her again I was not affiliated with the company she was calling on, and I asked that she provide me a copy of the "contract" with my name on it; she then said she didn't have that as she was a third party collector.
She said letters have been going to my addres for 7 months, I do not immediately remember any from AllianceOne, but I told her I didn't open it if it wasn't addressed to me, it either went back out to the mailman or it got chucked. I asked again how my name became entangled with this company, and would this touch my credit; she said it would hurt my credit, as it is a collection account and my name was on a "contract".
I demanded she provide validation of this debt to me, and that it is in my name personally as well as in the company's name, and I asked if she could give me any other information on me, like the last 4 digits of my social security card, she could not.
I am flabbergasted that AllianceOne obviously did a reverse search on the address the owners of this company once lived at (my address now), came up with my name and phone number and call me like this was a personal debt of mine. I do not believe my credit can be hurt, as I never had this account, and I don' think they have my social security number.
The only thing I have in common with the account is my address, and I think it's horrible that they stuck my name on the account just because I live here now. If they can look up this info and find the current owner of the house (me), then why can't they do more skip tracing and find the actual owners of the company? The company is still listed in the phone book, and I tried to give her the address, but I doubt she was listening.
Do I need to be worried? Seems crazy...
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