These CAMCO folks are just about one step away from identity fraud. They seem to have somehow found out my social security number from a credit card account I had 20 years ago, and which I discontinued 15 years ago.
They must have searched the Web for my name and found a resume I'd posted somewhere, with my phone number. Now, they call regularly. No mailed or emailed bills yet — but from what I've read here, those may begin any time.
Their harrassers at first sound very plausible and professional, offering some low "just what we paid for debt" settlement. When you persist in denying all knowledge, they suggest that, well, maybe a roommate or girlfriend did this bad thing with your credit card, but since it's attached to your SSN, poor chump, you are still responsible for it.
They don't like hearing that debt that old has been written off before the caller was born, and they really hate to hear that you've been checking your own credit report regularly for decades, and that it has always been clean as a whistle. They ask you to send them proof that the debt's not yours. Yeah, sure, proof of a negative. And they swear they have "an affidavit" that they didn't just make a mistake and buy some bogus debt. Said their illiterate Pat O'Connor, "My company don't buy no bogus debt!" At least she didn't impersonate a police officer.
I hung up. I eagerly await their first use of the USPS to mail me a bill or threat — some nice piece of evidence that I can attach to a federal fraud report.
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