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Thu 2 Sep, 2010 05:43 pm
I just got my fourth call today from bill collectors for someone with my last name and the initial J .
I'm one of those women who put their names in the phone book with just an initial. This bill collection stuff has gone on for a few years now, and it is very annoying. Plus scary, as I live on the edge financially myself.
I guess I'm going to have to go unlisted, or list my full name, and I'm not so inclined re listing my full name.
Does unlisted cost more money? Ne'er mind, I can check.
At least they have circumscribed hours when they can call, but gee. I got one last saturday at 9:01 a.m. I'm awake then, but a lot of people aren't.
Years ago, x and I had a friend, a movie director, for whom things went up and down, up and down. He lived sparely, very sparely, re money. For example, he built a small cabin on his property and moved into it, and leased out his house (he had an architecture background). He - a wonderful talker even at the worst of times - engaged the bill collectors, who were chasing him and not someone with a similar name - bill collectors such as they were back then in the early eighties. I admired his savoir faire.
I am a failure at savoir faire.
Any advice?
@ossobuco,
When I moved to Citrus Heights from the Bay Area, my new phone number was an unlisted one with just my first initial. The problem I had was that several people and companies before me either had the same phone number or had typos in their yellow pages advertisements with my number instead of theirs.
I was getting 5 or 6 of those calls a day and it got to the point that I just refused to answer my phone anymore. I got an answering machine and recorded outgoing messages saying just about what you said: "Hi, if this call is for the doctor's office, the moving company, Sandy or Steve, you have the wrong phone number. Please stop calling this one. If this call is for Lynn, leave a message."
It took about two years of always letting my answering machine screen calls before picking up before all the collection company, patient and business wrong numbers finally stopped.
We went with an unlisted number a while back, not related to bill collectors, and it was worth whatever little amount it cost.
Then, we just disconnected the land line.
@Butrflynet,
Ah, you understand.
I didn't mention I got a lot of calls for some contractor when I first moved here. That was before the bill collector barrage, which comes and goes, but Jane and Jason and Jeffrey and James must be up to their hips in alligators.
@chai2,
Alas, my land line is related to my dsl, and changing from that costs more money, spare as it is.
On the other hand, it would get the guy who answers the phone automatically at Qwest to shut t.f. up. He makes me, temperate woman that I am as we all know, homicidal.
Thing is, I'm not into tv, thus alternatives are an odd fit.
@ossobuco,
Yes, it costs a bit more. Not only that, the cost of not putting in the directory has periodical raises.
@roger,
I may have to change my name - add a middle initial that only cognoscenti would know but that might skew the B collectors. Then again, it might not skew them.
So, I'm cheap and annoyed. We'll see.
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