His phone and number stayed with the apartment?
Get caller ID and use an answering machine. Most recorded collection and sales calls will terminate when they get an answering machine.
Send them the money. Then maybe they'll stop calling.
Air horn, baby!!
Wait 35 seconds.
I used to work in that field. This would likely be a violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
Aggravated harassment is a crime.
Unggggg!!! Believe it or not, we've had our current phone number for almost 12 years, and we STILL get some of these calls from collection agencies looking for the deadbeats who had the number before us. Some collection agencies just don't give up--ever.
Oh, and the deadbeat previous phone number owner was a sheriff's deputy. I know because his employer (the county jail employees) would call and leave long messages on my answering service telling what happened on earlier shifts and mentioning inmates BY NAME!!!! Needless to say, I called them back and warned them, and for over three years I didn't get another call. And them, just a few weeks ago around thanksgiving, I get another call from the jail. This time I was able to pick up and talk to the caller and insist they purge the number from their employee records. Good grief!
Grab your shotgun on the way down there....
When I got a new cell phone I received collection calls from the person who had that number before I did.
Some of the calls were very nasty, one guy threatened to send sheriff's deputies to "my house."
I said, "Y'all come on down, I'll have beer and pizza for you!"
Leave a message saying that the caller has just called into a homicide scene where the owner of the residence was murdered and you need to speak to this caller and question him of his wherabouts at the time of the murder, etc.
The reason I ask, is that phone companies re-assign phone numbers too soon.
Ask for a new phone number at no charge due to the harrassment.
Your state Attorney General's office might be a good place to start. The phone company, the FCC, and the Better Business Bureau might be another.
Get the name of the agency, and call them, talk to the manager and chew him a new a**hole.
That's the way all phones work. Always have. The line is kept open until the person placing the call hangs up, not the person being called.
I've experienced that at work from sales calls. I would hang up the phone and after a reasonable time pick up the phone again and the person would still be there spewing their stuff. It has to have something to do with not being able to break their connection.
Not sure what we can do about it - exept complain .. and the first place to start is the person who made the phone call to you - I've done that to the sales calls, and the calls have stopped.
Change your number with no forwarding.
Get on with your life.
I have a little button I push that came from Office Max that tells the caller that their type of calls are not wanted and to remove this number from the list and then it cuts them off. Heard a few cuss words but it works. I have had collection calls for accounts that we have never had and then I saw a warning that it is a scam and people are collecting money from unsuspecting people.
I used to get calls to my shop phone for another business, a church, and two different private parties, one of whom was the subject of a bill collector, that had the number before me. I was still getting those calls 6-7 years after I got the number. I located the fellow who had the previous business and he had relinquished the number 13 years before. I did get a couple of new customers out of it.