How do I get bill collectors who call about people I know to stop calling me?
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre27.pdf if you are in the US Look at section 805 and 805 about how they may contact you and what they are and aren't allowed to do. You can simply send a Certified Mail, Return Receipt (CMRR) letter explaining you have no part of it, and that they are not allowed to contact you by any means other than in writing from this point forward. Then you can either put return to sender on the letters (it costs them money) or open them and delete anything you don't need. "I agree about not wanting to get into your friend's personal business, and it's a scummy bill collector that repeatedly calls friends or family to track down a debtor. On the other hand, at least he's made it obvious he's calling about a debt as opposed to pretending to be tracking down your friend with some other pretext. Nevertheless, you want the calls to stop.  Here are two suggestions: Perhaps, a small fib: ""The creep owes me money too! Grrr! Let me know when you find him!""  The bill collector probably won't call you again :-) Or, if you're like me and uncomfortable fibbing – even to a scummy bill collector! – then here's a more truthful yet direct approach: ""I told you already it's not my debt, it's none of my business, and that I want you to stop calling me.  You have no right to harass me and if you call again I will involve the police.  There will be no other warning."" Then have the phone company block the bill collector's phone number from calling you." "If they really won't stop calling you, just waste their time. Usually the best thing I do to telemarketers (the ones that constantly call even through I've told them to stop) is to say ""oh yes, I'm interested I'll just get a pen"" - put them on hold and keep them on hold.  Do it every time they call and soon they'll get the idea that you're a waste of time." I had a similar situation, except the debtor had no connection to us whatsoever, other than holding our phone number previously. We tried going through channels to deal with it, and had no success. At the end of the day, I was very abusive to the people calling, and forwarded the number to a very irritating destination.
Step 1)I answer the phone saying it is illegal to call my cell phone and I want all further communications in writing. Put this number on the do not call list and reverse search the number they dialed. Step 2) I say that whoever changed their number and how long I have owned the number and I call forward when they don't stop. I forward calls through google voice and mark them as spam. They get a sorry number was disconnected recording. Step 3) REALLY HARSH. I say the person passed away only if they aren't deterred enough by the previous efforts or they get cross into extreme harassment. Usually Step 1 is enough to stop the calls no matter who they ask for. "OK, there is no way in hell that  a stranger should have your contact details. there is no way in hell that a stranger should be able to determine your name from that account number unless you are previously known to them. Have they explained to your satisfaction how any previous relationship was established? It was correct to direct them back to their own bank or their branch manager if they bank with the CBA. There are procedures in place for this, and you are in the clear if the bank handles it. Even there is a previous relationship, and you are in their address book, think long and hard about their ""bona fides"". It may not have been a scam they may have had fat fingers and be genuinely out of pocket now. It is SOP that if you refuse to refund the money the banks will become less helpful. (EDIT - you have consented to retrun the money). EDIT  - IF you had not consented... Disclosure: I am a former CBA employee and a 20 year veteran of NetBank, and these are my own opinions." Suing is a legitimate option as well as screening your calls but here's another idea which has personally worked and relates to the collections I did for awhile.  Talk with the collector.  Outstanding debt gets sold many times and each time a new collector gets their hands on an account they do their due diligence which means calling every single number multiple times.  Collectors a looking for consumers who actively evade collections calls for years. My recommendation is to use logic and explain the situation.  Give your first name and describe when you received the phone number and then ask a simple question.  When in the last 3 1/2 years have you or any collector had a successful hit from this number.  They'll respond never in 3 1/2 years.  The collector notes the account for themselves and future collectors.  Debt collectors are about about making money, not wasting time and they do review all notes pertaining to an account.  Will it work?  Maybe not but hopefully it will stop the calls with a short conversation.  Good luck. Did you know that bill-pay is a third party system? The way they run it encourages multiple overdrafts, Just last week I had 150$ in fees. Not to mention they recently had a class action they lost in which they were fucking over service members with home loans. I've been with them since 2002, they're just as shady as every other institute that charges you money to use your money. Hmmm. I hadn't considered that energy usage would be considered confidential. How about asking a nearby neighbor to share their next bill. If it's higher or lower than yours, just scale the history up or down accordingly.  Other than that, the utility company might offer its own level billing plan where they handle the estimate and offer you the same payment each month. Source:  Business owner for 13 years.  Unfortunately you may be hard-pressed to get that money back.   You can try sending him to collections, but at that point it often starts to cost  you more than what he owes you, in my experience.   In the worst instance I lost $2100 on a single invoice that I never received a dime for.   Nearly 20 hours of my time wasted for nothing!  A bit of unsolicited advice:  I've found that when working on a service-basis, obtaining billing and payment info up front and taking a deposit makes sense.   I take 1 hour's worth of deposit and bill the rest after.   Not only does it verify the payment method works, but it also gives you a way to confirm the customer's ability to pay in the future.  If the customer balks at this, just walk away.  It's not worth the risk.   As a business, your goal is to make money in exchange for goods or services.  If your customers don't understand that and aren't willing to front a bit of money to secure your services, you'll likely going to lose time and money. "I agree that you shouldn't give up trying to get your money back, but I strongly feel that this is not sufficient. If they are trying to victimize you, they are trying to victimize others.  Taking care of getting your own money back should be your top concern, but contacting any Attorneys General and District Attorneys that have jurisdiction should also be a priority to help others--past, present, and future--that might be caught in this scam. Contact them, contact the police, contact the BBB, contact the local media. Shine a light and make the cockroaches pack up and get out of town. ""We got you... you have no recourse"" should always be met with the response, ""I will shut you down.""" "Banks have a financial, and regulational duty called ""Know your customer"", established to avoid a number of historical problems occurring again, such as money laundering, terrorism financing, fraud, etc. Thanks to the scale, and scope of the problem (millions of customers, billions of transactions a day), the way they're handling this usually involves fuzzy logics matching, looking for irregular patterns, problem escalation, and other warning signs. When exceeding some pre-set limit, these signal clues are then filtered, and passed on for human inspection. Needless to say, these algorithms are not perfect, although, thanks to financial pressure, they are improving. In order to understand why your trading account has been suspended, it's useful to look at the incentives: false positives -suspending your trade, and assuming you guilty until proven otherwise- could cost them merely your LTV (lifetime value of customer -how much your business brings in as profit); while false negatives -not catching you while engaging in activities listed above- might cost them multi-month investigations, penalties, and court.  Ultimately, this isn't against you. I've been with the bank for 15 years and the money in the accounts has been very slowly accumulated via direct-deposit paychecks over that time. From this I gather the most likely explanation, is that you've hit somekind of account threshold, that the average credit-happy customers usually do not exceed, which triggered a routine checkup. How do you deal with it? Practice puppetry! There is only one way to survive angry customers emotionally: you have to realize that they’re not angry at you; they’re angry at your business, and you just happen to be a convenient representative of that business. And since they’re treating you like a puppet, an iconic stand-in for the real business, you need to treat yourself as a puppet, too. Pretend you’re a puppeteer. The customer is yelling at the puppet. They’re not yelling at you. They’re angry with the puppet. Your job is to figure out, “gosh, what can I make the puppet say that will make this person a happy customer?”  In an investigation case, go with boredom: The puppet doesn't care, have no feelings, and is eternally patient. Figure out what are the most likely words that will have the matter ""mentally resolved"" from the investigator's point of view, tell them what they have to hear, and you'll have case closed in no time. Hope this helps." "If it makes you feel any better, I now bank with a credit union. These WF assholes called me one day to tell me that someone had tried to withdraw $500 from my account and that I needed to sign up for a more secure account, of course with a $16 monthly charge. So I did what anybody would do... went to the bank and ask questions right? After I got there and mention the problem they told me that nothing was wrong with my account, that no transactions were attempted and even if they did attempt them and were canceled they would still show up but they didn't. Few minutes later I got another call from that guy and he was telling me that the problem was taken care of and that I didn't need to go to the bank. After that I was just suspicious. Basically what it came down to was that somebody was trying to set me up for accounts that I didn't ask for just so he can get promoted at my expense. They gave me a opportunity to report him but I didn't because I knew him personally, he was one of my ""friends"" and at the time he had two kids. I didn't want him to lose his job. I told him that what he did was completely fucked up and that you don't do that to people outside of WF. That same day I withdrew all my money. I still remember cutting the conversation short after WF tried to convince me all kinds of ways not to do that. I been with a Credit Union about 3 years now and so far so good." I have had a couple of businesses do this to me.  I simply ask them to come over to talk about the bill.  Sometimes this ends it.  If they come over then I call the cops to file a report on fraud.  A lot of times the police will do nothing unless they have had a load of complaints but it certainly gets the company off your back.  And if they are truly unscrupulous it doesn't hurt to get a picture of them talking with the police and their van, and then post the whole situation online - you will see others come forward really quick after doing something like this. You are talking to the wrong people.  Debt collectors are not intimidated by anything you say. Call and tell them that, before you pay the debt, they need to get the paperwork from the company to verify that you actually owe them the money and the amount.  You need copies of the original paperwork. This alone may resolve the issue.  If not, then call the client company and explain that THEIR debt collection agency is talking to the wrong person.  Explain why you are not that person. It may be necessary to tell them that your lawyer advised you that they will be personally held responsible for any damages that you may incur from this debt collector's actions.  The client is the one who needs to be intimidated. I use online banking and bill pay for all accounts where I can control when and how much is paid, where I push the funds out.  The bills from those companies that want to be allowed to reach into my account and pull money automatically (e.g. my Chase mortgage) I simply will not enroll - they get a paper check in the mail. There is no way I am giving these cocksucker criminals *permission* to take money out of my accounts. "Sue the friend. When you win, garnish his wages. It does not have to be by so much that it makes him quit his job, but get 75.00 per pay period to come to you. This may require the use of a private investigator but, if you want to make this ""friend"" face consequences, this is your only option. Otherwise, let it go and keep paying his bill." The cold caller is just a different way to contact you compared to the junk mail that they send. The business  gets information from the credit rating companies for households that meet a specific set of criteria. It could be town, age, home ownership, low credit utilization...Or the exact opposite depending on what they are selling. Some business do sell your data. Grocery store know who buys certain products: parents buying diapers may want to start saving for college; ones buying acne medicine may want to talk about lower rates for car insurance.  When they call via phone they have a different success rate compared to junk mail, but for that business that may be acceptable for their needs. *ALL* phone calls are intrusive. When they are from someone I know, the intrusion is easily forgiven. When it is from a stranger, there is no reason to forgive the intrusion. When that stranger then tries to sell me something, anything, I am immediately cold to their entreaty.  As to alternatives, the [request for proposal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Request_for_proposal) is worth considering. When I am in need of something, I invite marketers like yourself to submit proposals. In this case, your phone call is much more welcome because I implicitly asked for it.  &gt; if I truly believe that the product I'm selling is going to improve your life, it would be incredibly fucking rude not to give you the opportunity to obtain it.  Incorrect. You are putting yourself in the position of the evangelist, so consider the perspective of [atheists on Christian evangelism](http://atheism.about.com/od/atheismatheiststheism/a/ObjectEvangeliz.htm).