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Like many people these days, Credit.com reader E.D. is receiving phone calls from collections agents. Unlike many readers, however, E.D. is certain that the debt doesn’t exist. The callers say they are representing Capital One, but E.D. has never received a loan or a credit card from the bank.
“I spoke with them over a week ago and asked them not to call me anymore because I don’t even have a Capital One card,” E.D. wrote in a recent comment to our website.
But there are indicators that the callers have little to do with Capital One: Their unprofessional, potentially illegal behavior. The phone calls keep coming, even after E.D. complained and a representative of the company said that E.D.’s name and phone number had been removed from their call list.
Also fishy: The callers refuse to let E.D. speak to a manager. And when E.D. demands to know why they are still calling, the callers hang up.
“I’m annoyed and pretty sure it’s not legal to call a random person over 8 times a day and hang up,” E.D. writes. “What should I do?”
It sounds like E.D. is the victim of a scam. But even if the calls are coming from a legitimate collections company, it appears they are breaking the law, since the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act bans repeated or continuous phone calls, as Credit.com reported.
“I would suggest you talk with a consumer law attorney who takes on Fair Debt Collection Practices cases,” says Gerri Detweiler, Credit.com’s consumer credit expert. “If they are breaking the law, the attorney may take your case for free.”
There are other steps E.D. and others can take to stop harassing phone calls from debt collectors regarding debts they don’t owe. Whether the callers are scammers, or legitimate collections agents whose records contain errors, there is no reason for innocent consumers to accept such harassing calls.
“You’ve got rights, and lots of them,” Lucy Lazarony wrote for Credit.com.
Image: KB35, via Flickr
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