I received a harassing call from this "person" about a 12 year old debt. He claimed they use a service call SkipTrace. The statute of limitations has run out on this debt from a company no longer in business and who refused to work with me when I was injured in an auto accident.
The collector started going on about a debt I incurred over 11 years ago.
He said he is not "some paid by the hour bill collector" and that I would receive a Form 1099-C in the mail from the IRS if I failed to resolve the debt. Funny, because all I could hear were people talking in the background and this bozo was probably sitting in a cube dialing one after the other.....just like a "paid by the hour bill collector".
If you are ever threatened by an aggressive bill collector about form 1099-C please do your research on-line about 1099-C and how you may qualify for an exemption. Especially if you are living pay check to pay check, have excessive debt, and/or have little to no assets.
Also, if a collector ever says they are a government agency or affiliated with the IRS...THEY ARE LIEING. This is true for personal credit card debt.
I just got a call from this number once then the call dropped after what sounded like a cheap VOIP router failed. I called the number back and spoke with "unknown" as they would NOT inentify who they were nor who they were representing other than to say THEIR company name was CRS. They just kept asking to verify my name and last four of my social before they could tell me anything. When I respectfully declined to verify any information on account that they could not tell me who they were at least representing they just said "okay, have a nice day" and got the click and dialtone..
Got a call from this number just now. I did not pick up the phone as I did not recognize the number. They left a message. This guys voice was so harsh and sounded scary, that he thinks people will call immediately. I decided to check whether this number was kosher. Just as I thought, this was a phony and god knows what number.
The lesson: Do not return calls from any number you do not recognize. These seems to be rampant these days. As much as I like to avoid these calls and have blocked anonymous calls, these people have figured about putting junk information on the caller ID to by pass the system. Thus there really is no way to avoid these calls.
Best is to answer these calls, hold them without answering as long as you can ,,, this way cost to make these calls will increase. In the end, that is the only way to defeat them.
I received a call from this number again guy sounded very tough(lol) and said he was with DRS(debt recovery system), im guessing. He left a 866 number on my voicemail. He then called my wife's cell phone immediatly afterward using a 713(houston) number and left the exact same voicemail.