Stop Bill Collectors!

My creditors would do anything to track me down. They have their own resources and means of finding me physically in order to force me to pay my debt. Here are some of the things that my creditor and their crooked lawyers did to find me (before I figured out how to hide!):

Can Bill Collectors Really Do This?

• They pulled my credit report. I know this because I pulled my credit report and found the lawyer’s name on the bottom. Nothing on my credit report was private, and everything about me was on there: my name, address, former address, spouse, phone number(s), my bank, where I worked…and more! I learned the hard way that I cannot allow my personal data into the hands of the credit bureaus.
• They called my friends and relatives (remember that you wrote down your mom’s phone number on that student loan application fifteen years ago? Trust me, the collection agency can find it if they want to). This one wasn’t embarrassing for me: my friends and relatives all knew about the circumstances leading up to the judgment against me. But it could have been embarrassing: a collections agency called my mother-in-law, asked if she knew my whereabouts for a “personal business matter” and asked her to call XYZ collections if she heard from me.
• They sent letters to my mailman and phone company. Luckily for my mailman, I know him pretty well, and explained the situation. But the phone company? A clerk there send me a copy of the electric company’s reply in error.
• They called my ex-landlord and obtained a copy of a rent check I wrote him ten years ago. Lucky for me, I had switched addresses, and banks.

These aren’t the only tactics that credit companies use…I knew that unless I took steps to hide myself, they would find me again, easily!
Next: How to fool your creditors into thinking you’ve moved…

Related posts:

1. The Free and Easy Way to Stop Bill Collectors’ Harassment
2. The Easy Way to Sue Your Bill Collectors For Harrassment…and Win!
3. ID, Please! How to use the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act to Outwit Bill Collectors.
4. Change Your Information and Update Your Credit Report
5. How to Stop Creditors Phone Calls

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009 at 9:02 am and is filed under General Info. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.