At our new house, we have a land line. We haven’t had a land line in years and do not really see the point of one as both of us have our cellphones. We do have to have one here because the only internet available here is DSL. So, we have the landline and a phone hooked up to it. We don’t use it and I don’t honestly know the number. Joshua may as he says it would be nice to be able to get a hold of me in the event that my cell dies (or is on vibrate in another part of the house). It is also nice to have the safety net for calling 911 if we need to. Oh and I signed up for the do not call list as soon as we were issued a number.
So my problem? The people who had the phone number before us, the X family doesn’t seem to like to pay their bills. We get calls all the time from collection agencies, dish network, hospitals and various other creditors asking for members of the X family. When I get a live person, I tell them that this is no longer the number for the X family and to please quit calling. Those people have and it is nice, however, we get a lot of recorded calls with the request to return call to a certain number and ask for a person.
Folks, I don’t know about you, but I sure as heck do not have time to return those phone calls.
So what do I do? No, really, what do I do? I cannot get these people to quit calling. Even if I feel like I have made a dent in the calls, another collection agency pops up. Part of me thinks these people are still giving out our number as their number because the calls just won’t stop.
Any suggestions?
1) I have “dry DSL”: DSL without a landline. I pay a bit more for the service than if it were bundled with a landline.
2) I had a creditor calling me on my cell number several years back. It was always a recording. I looked up the address of the company online and sent a sternly worded letter (print, mailed USPS) telling them to cease and desist. After a few weeks the calls stopped though I never received any response from the company. Luckily it was just one company/creditor.
unfortunately other than calling them back or waiting for them to call you again. there isn’t anything that you can do. Creditors don’t fall under the do not call list and neither does anyone you do business with (which is irritating because I get a lot of calls asking if we’d like to review our services). I suppose you can do what I do, which is screen your calls. I have an answering machine and I just let every call (except the ones that I know about) go to it before picking up.
You can request a different phone number from the phone company.
I agree. Change your phone number.
I have to say, I never even thought to do that. I will run that option by Joshua tonight. I wonder if I can request that the number assigned to me is not one used in the past 300 years.