Thursday, May 3, 2012

Carlos ???

We have lived in our house since 2004 and we are one of the few people these days that still has a home telephone.  The telephone number assigned to our home telephone has been my number since 1998.  

For the last few years, every six months or so, 70% of our home telephone calls, that we have answered, have been collection calls for Carlos [last name redacted].  At present, our home telephone answering machine is full.  When I get around to listening to the messages 90% of the calls will be collections calls for Carlos.  Bank of America is desperate to reach him and has been for years.  The calls come in waves, I will, at times, put in the effort to call back some of these collectors and ask them to "disassociate this number from Carlos."  Sometimes my effort pays off  some collection agencies are receptive and cooperative, others simply hang up on me.

One of my major complaints is that for the vast majority of these calls, which are automated, there is no way to indicate that they are calling the wrong number.  Often the only option is to press #, or whatever, if I AM Carlos.  Recently, I tried this option, I pressed # indicating that yes I was Carlos and was transferred to a live person.  Thereafter,  I tried to explain to that person that they were calling the wrong number, half way through my explanation they hung up on me.  Then 5 minutes later I got a second call, this time from a live person, who again asked for Carlos.  I'm assuming that the follow up call was from the same collection agency and I'm further assuming that I received a second call because I had positively indicated that I was Carlos.

My husband just doesn't answer our home phone, but it is my telephone number why can't I answer it assuming that it is a call for me or for him?  I pay for the telephone number and service, don't I have some right to use it.  I would send out cease and desist letters to set up a law suit for these automated calls, but I don't know how I could do so since I don't know who is calling, most of the time, and I don't have the account or loan number they are calling on.

Any thoughts?

1 comment:

Stephanie said...

Maybe get a caller ID and have their number blocked? I'm not sure if that is even possible, but maybe it is?