Complaint / Review
Certegy
Harassing phone calls

Thanks to another consumer complaintser, I was able to piece together what seems to be a growing problem; collection calls on your cell phone for debts that that are not yours.

The original poster was a "C" from Maryland, USA. The link to his post is below:

Usacomplaints.com/reports/ripoff136368.htm

In searching the consumer complaints, I found 13 other people with problems with Certegy Payment Recovery.

"C". From Germantown, Maryland has been getting collection calls from Certegy Payment Recovery on his cell phone.

For the past five months, I have also been getting these calls on my cell phone. The callers are looking for somebody with a name that is not anything like mine. I have had the cell phone number they are calling for over four years and of course, it is unlisted.

At first, I thought someone had dialed my number by mistake. But when the calls continued, I started talking to the callers. They refused to give the company name they were calling for, but my caller id has a 727 area code for the calling number which is for St. Petersburg FL. The rest of the number is very close to some of Certegy's other phone numbers.

Three times I have explained to the callers that I am not the person they are looking for. They always say they are sorry and will remove the number.

The calls stop for a week or so and then continue. The last person I talked to said he was in India. Apparently Certegy is outsourcing some of its collection work.

Besides being annoying, these people are eating up my cell phone minutes and I want it to stop.

In one conversation, I was able to the the name of the merchant they were trying to collect for which was a large department store. I have never shopped at this merchant or had an account there.

The strategy I used was to get the name of the merchant so I can send them the "drop dead letter" via Certified Mail, telling them to cease all contact with me for this matter.

My understanding is that after you send the "drop dead" letter and the collection attempts contunue, you can sue the merchant.

We'll see.