My son who does not live with me owed on student loans.... I was being harassed by a debt collector for weeks....
I finally solved the problem....
1. Before you talk to them ask for a name and call back number in case you get disconnected...
2. Explain you do not owe the debt and I need to be taken off your call list
3. If they can’t or won’t ask to speak to a supervisor...
4. Keep going up the ladder until you get the person with the authority to remove your name from their call list... Remember at every level get a name and all back number with extension
5. When you finally get the manager with the ability to remove your name and won’t simply explain that for every time I get a call I will personally call your extension and harass you every hour on the hour...until you do...
Never failed to work... I promise them they will rue the day they don’t take me off the call list....
You can sue them for $1000 per incident after the first call if you’ve told them to cease and desist. I have done so in the past and it works like a charm. FReepmail me if you want the link to the law firm I used.
I tried most of what you listed twice and it had no effect; they actually started calling more. What did work was telling them I used my contacts in the FBI to get a trace on their location and I knew who leased the space in the building they were calling from. That got their attention and presto - no more calls.
I sat on the phone with them for hours as they closed all of the online account information and made new accounts. Each and every time, an email would go out with updated account info.....thankfully I was cc'd on the email or I wouldn't have known. This happened over the span of a week and all the techs could tell me is some, one, ? of their servers might not have the updates to the account processed.
Enough was enough, I finally spoke to a supervisor to have the account closed and early cancellation (for three lines) waived. I was informed that this was a "non-waiver event." I asked him if violating the Privacy Act of 1974, you know federal law, wasn't enough then what was? Well, they agreed to cancel the account and waive all the fees.
Except I had $90 in credit on the account; the check was in the mail (supposedly). Verizon's internal collections began to call and harass me for the early cancellation fees (apparently yet again their servers didn't update) even though they owed me money. I asked nicely for them to stop calling me and provide me my refund. Each conversation ending up being 1 1/2 hrs+ as I talked to "supervisors" trying to "fix" the problem.
Finally, I had enough. I got the number to the collections department (gotta love caller id) and I began to call them repeatedly throughout the day. As I also had the normal customer service numbers and several supervisors' desk numbers, I took the liberty of calling them and asking "where's the money?" I also made sure to tell them that I was a happy Sprint customer.
It took two days, but I got a call from two different (customer service and one from collections) supervisors apologizing and the tracking number for my check.