You'd be surprised. I moved about 2 1/2 years ago, and got a new phone number to go with the house. Apparently the prior owner of the phone number (who had never lived at the house) was a real deadbeat. I'm still getting debt collection calls, although they've been dying off of late. Her debt must have been resold, at ever lower rates, to a bunch of collection agencies.
Those people already bought the debt and they’re trying to collect anything they can. There won’t be any buyers for this new debt.