Do we *have* to talk to collectors? More...

[hopeforus]

Are we required to talk to them when they call? We are about to move to Ohio where my husband is and we will be stopping all payments as of this moment. Well obviously our phone number is about to change when we move. So they will get a dead line. Will this cause us problems? Will it look like we are avoiding them and should we change our number with them after we get one? We will be delinquent by the time we get our new number for a couple accounts.

Thanks

Crystal

[hopeforus]

Sorry, I just saw the wonderful stickies and had part of my question answered. I'm sorry for not finding out the answer first

Still curious about whether it's ok to not have a working phone number when they call. How could this be bad though? If you can't pay your bills then some people get their utilities and phone shut off anyway...

[HHM]

You're not required to talk to them. But it is almost always in your best interests not to ignore them.
If they cannot get a hold of you, then they are allowed to call family, friends, neighbors, and employer.

[hopeforus]

How do they find your family and friends and how do they knew who my husband's employer is?

[hopeforus]

Also... we plan to stop playing bills now... and will file beginning of January. That isn't too bad of a time frame is it? We will only be missing 2 monthly payments at that point...

Of course if I wait till February to file then our average income will be a bit less since July gave us the most income.

[allavdj]

How do they find your family and friends and how do they knew who my husband's employer is?

Some collectors will simply get a phone book and start calling everybody that shares your last name (been there) or will look up your address and call everybody around you (been there). Where you work or employment history is a simple credit check away or they can check with the state for employment tax info. Unfortunately in today's "information age" everything is out there, just need to know where to look and trust me...they know where to look.

[hopeforus]

well there aren't many with our last name. so that wouldn't be too hard for them I guess. we are moving and we weren't friends with our neighbors now so I guess I don't care about that too much.

well i guess we will make sure we change our number with them then! I don't want them calling hubby's work. He just started there ... that wouldn't be good. Would all his employment info be available that quickly? He just started a month ago...

technology really sucks sometimes.

[GoingDown]

Debt collectors actually have software that lets them simply enter the debtor's social security number and it gives them the phone numbers of relatives, neighbors, and employers of them and their spouse.

My advice is to head them off at the pass-- tell your relatives, friends, and employer that if any debt collectors call them, they should just hang up on them.

And you do the same-- hang up on them.

It has been my experience that absolutely no good ever comes of speaking to a debt collector. It raises your blood pressure, they get information to use against you, and if you can't pay them, they just call right back again later asking the same darn questions all over again.

[hopeforus]

Hope they don't call his Army Reserve command. Of course if they do many they will realize how badly they screwed over my husband when he was injured and they just sent home home without pay... not sure what they expected to happen to him.

He is already going to lose his super secret security clearance

[funcritter]

This thread made me laugh. Last time I looked, there were 6-7 pages of people with my last name. They would be busy for quite a while.

I disconnected my home phone last summer long before I thought if filing and never updated the number to the creditors. They have been calling my work number but my boss tells them I'm not in since I work nights and he tells them not to call anymore.

Two houses to my north are vacant and the house to my south, the people speak spanish. I don't think they will get too far in calling relatives since all I have are a brother and sister. and they aren't in the book.

[AngelinaCat]

This thread made me laugh. Last time I looked, there were 6-7 pages of people with my last name. They would be busy for quite a while.

I disconnected my home phone last summer long before I thought if filing and never updated the number to the creditors. They have been calling my work number but my boss tells them I'm not in since I work nights and he tells them not to call anymore.

Two houses to my north are vacant and the house to my south, the people speak spanish. I don't think they will get too far in calling relatives since all I have are a brother and sister. and they aren't in the book.

I LOVE this scenario!

[hopeforus]

If we will be retaining a lawyer the first week of January do you guys think we will have any calls to his work that soon? Because they have to call our lawyer after that right?

[AngelinaCat]

Once you retain your lawyer, you should be able to refer to caller to him or her. We kept our attorney's cards taped to all of our handsets so that we would have the info handy when they called. For the most part, once they learned we had the attorney, that was that and they stopped calling. This was true even though it ended up being 17 months between when we retained the attorney and actually got her motivated to file our paperwork.

Good luck.

[hopeforus]

Thank you

[Nicollette]

I'm not sure, but I've once been told that debt collectors will use LexisNexis to find people.