Ring Ring Hello, I'm Not A Debt Collector!
Nothing says "wow I can't wait to see who is on the other end of the line" like a company that programmed their number to show up on caller ID as "NOT A COLLECTER."
According to reports on whocalled.us and 800notes, the number belongs to a telemarketer calling people, sometimes on their cellphone, about their "auto warranty" or about "lowering their interest rates."
One person says that when they called back and asked for the name of one of the customer service reps, he said his name was "Ben Dover." Right now if you call the number, a recording plays a few times of a young woman thanking you for calling back and informing you you can press 1 to be removed from their "preferred marketing list."
Truth in advertising, I guess. At least they're not "COLLECTERS."
[via Tits and Wits] (Thanks to Richard!)
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@calquist: You shouldn't. NCO is a call centre here, and they take calls for banks and geek squad and such. They don't make outgoing calls.
I keep getting calls that start "We are a financial services company, regulated and controlled by the Department of Justice". I tried explaining once that we don't have a Department of Justice in the UK, but the woman seemed unable to grasp that there was any place that wasn't in the US.
@WEGGLES90: I get daily calls from them. I don't have outstanding debt, but I think they might be for the previous owner of my phone. Recorded message every time.
I got a similar one from a 562 area code. No caller id but when calling back, the scenario is similar.
@calquist:
"what about ALL THESE COMPANIES? Has anyone dealt with them? People get calls from them all the time."
I edited it to appeal to a broader audience.
@WEGGLES90:
Sorry but you're a bit off. NCO Financial systems is a collector or as I classify them a junk debt buyer. They sometimes think they are a factoring company. They do in fact make outbound calls to attempt to collect debts.
They may well be regulated by the Department of Justice...of Senegal, or Zimbabwe, or Vanuatu...
I got a call at work telling me it was VERY URGENT that I call back, it was a very TIME SENSITIVE REQUEST, do please call AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
So I did, out of curiosity. The rep asked for my social security number. I offered her a phone number, the last 4 #s, anything else but she refused to tell me the name of her company, her name, what the call was about, etc until I provided my full social. I gave her my phone number and told them not to call back.
Well, they did. I called once again and the second rep took my number, asked my name, then - get this - gave me the name of the person they were actually trying to reach, and did I know him/her? I quickly Googled the company, which of course was a debt collector. Now I know way more about my co-worker than I'd like to.
Way to keep it confidential.
DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDumb asses
I can just see the conversation with the phone company they had as they set up their phone system.
"And how would you like your company name to show up on caller ID?"
"Whatever it says, make sure they think its not a collector."
"Will do, sir!"
@calquist: If it's NCO just tell them ... oh wait ... I can't say that on a family web forum. Nevermind.
Well they might be a "collector" but not a collecter.
Damn clicked to soon. Was just going to say that was a great close.
Another law needed to ensure "corporate responsibility".
The law that is required is for telephone providers to ensure that caller ID data received from customers with the type of phone service that allows them to set this information, is valid. If the phone number is not one of those in the block(s) assigned to the customer, the call shall not be completed. If the caller name is not one of those listed on the account (and to be listed, must be a valid name of legal company), the call shall not be completed. Exceptions to this will apply to governmental law enforcement, etc. As it stands now, caller ID info simply cannot be trusted, except maybe to some degree for people you already know.
Someone needs a macro lens or learn to focus up close better. Given the high pixel resolution of many cameras these days, holding at a distance then cropping in might work better if the lens can't focus that close.
@calquist: NCO Financial Systems do make outbound collections calls. Depending on what call center is contacting you, they do anything from medical bills to utility bills that have gone into collections.
Yes, as Weggles said, they do also have call centers that take calls for Best Buy, but NCO began primarily as a collections call center and have since branched out from there.
Hah that's pretty good. It comes up as "Omaha, NE" for me. I wonder where the person who received call is located?
When they say "Press 1 to be removed off our preferred calling lists," if you actually press 1, will they just call you more (similar to the unsubscribe feature on spam email) or actually take you off the list? I'm afraid to try.
@gatewaytoheaven: For the car warranty scammers, I did press 1 and never heard from them again (yet). When they called my husbands cell, he asked to speak to a representative and when he mentioned that they were calling a cell phone, they hung up and they continue to call. Definitely annoying.
@Skipweasel: score one for the american education system!
give me an A!
give me an W!
give me an E!
give me an S!
give me an U!
give me an M!
give me a squiggly! (sorry, had to do it)
@Skaperen:
I'm guessing it was a camera phone and they wanted to get the shot before the caller hung up.
Wow, and to think that Nigerian scammers totally missed the boat on this one. If they had only put "NOT A SCAM" in the subject line of that email they sent me from the exiled Prince Numbumba, I would have happily forked over my information and $10,000 "processing fee" in a heartbeat.
I'm getting the strong impression that it's the same company(s) hawking both the auto warranty scam and the lower your credit card interest rate scam.
Ben Dover.
I love it. I bet it pissed the called off to no end too.
i don't really get too many of these junk calls, fortunately, because i don't put my number out there that much. i always fill in my skpye number which doesn't forward to my phone, on anything i need a junk number for.
but the last two weeks i have been getting three or four calls a day from people who immediately say 'wrong number' and hang up. i suspect they are looking for a male. and from the variety of callers and the way a couple of them acted paranoid and angry when i called them back [one of them really did sound like a friend of mine from orlando and was calling from an orlando area code]
i suspect their dealer got a new number and it's a digit or two off from mine.
I only answer my phone when the caller ID states "NOT AN ASSHOLE".
I haven't picked up the phone in nearly 14 years.
Caller ID brings out the worst in some people. When a normal person sees missed call from an unknown number, the first thing said normal person will do is check for a voice mail. If there's no voice mail, normal person will ignore the call, assuming, as would normally be the case, that the mystery number is a wrong number, or the person didn't deem the call important enough to warrant a message.
Abnormal person will call the number back and say "You just called me!" or if they get a business on the line "someone from there just called me!" Our poor receptionist deals with this all the time. She will ask abnormal person if they do business with us. If the answer is no, she will suggest that perhaps someone in our office miss-dialed while attempting to call someone else. At that point, abnormal person either hangs up or gets even more agitated that someone would possibly f*ck up his day by dialing a wrong number that happens to be his, sending the poor soul into a tizzy. Oh the humanity of it all!!!!
@wcnghj: Why bother spending your time and money? Hanging up is faster, more effective and certainly cheaper.
402 is Omaha Ne. The Telemarketing capital of the world. Well, used to be. I think India has that title now.
@Meggers: Put the phone on the DO NOT CALL list. Wait 30 days.
As soon as they call back, inform them that the number is on the DO NOT CALL list.
Every time they call after that, profit.
@calquist: I think NCO was the one trying to collect on a non-existent Verizon bill years ago.
RipoffReport.com has a long list of people claiming fraudulent collection attempts from them
[www.ripoffreport.com]
Candygram.
Flowers.
Plumber ma'am.
I'm only a dolphin ma'am.
@doctor_cos: Good luck tracking it down. AGs have a hard enough time as it is figuring out who the companies are behind these calls.
@fredbiscotti: Hanging up is not effective if they keep calling back.
Heck, many auto-dialers hang up on you if an operator isn't available - so you cannot even tell them to not call back.
@heart.shaped.rock: My phone number (landline, luckily) is one digit away from the county's disabled / low-income transportation service's dispatch number. Since my number uses the common, old-service exchange number, and the bus's number has the brand new barely-used one, I get a TON of calls.
So far, I've been kind, but I get increasingly tempted to pick up the phone and answer it the way that the service does, which will result in prospective passengers getting fined for no-shows or possibly even banned from the service for repeat offenders.
It's gotten to the point where I recognize the numbers/names of heavy hitters to my phone now. The name of the service is 'Greene Cats'... so I occasionally pick up the phone and answer "Black Cats" (I have two). This is my sad idea of fun.
@heart.shaped.rock: The tendency to respond like an abnormal person (as you described) seems to be more common in some parts of the world and less in others. I think it's a localized phone culture thing. When I go home to see my parents abroad, I cringe every time I get ready to call friends/relatives that I haven't dialed in a while. I'm going to mess a digit up, hang up before the person answers, and then have to deal with the 'call back'.
One slight explanation that applies outside the US is the 'beeping' phenomenon. If you aren't charged for incoming calls and you are running low on cash or prepaid minutes, you can call a friend who has more cash/minutes, hang up before the call goes through, and then wait for them to call back. It works well in Europe and most parts of Africa - maybe elsewhere as well?
So maybe the people in the US who call back an unknown missed call got used to 'beeping' (aka 'flashing') in another country.
@cortana: Thats like the Woman who had a similar number to the new hotel down the street and kept geting the hotels phone calls. She eventualy started book everyones events and rooms and caused enough problems for the hotel that they changed their number. Dont know if its a true story or not, but its funny.
I heard another one where a woman has a similar number to a new Debt collection agency. When her phone rang non stop she asked them to change their number. When they refused she told them " Fine, Ill just tell everyone their account is paid in full!" The collection agency changed thrit number.
@emona: I'm not sure how similar the regs are in the States, but up here, all commercial callers are required to identify the company they work for at the beginning of the call. Explaining this to the ones who don't do it is a good way to make sure they don't call back. Especially when you start dropping phrases like "CRTC regulations require...".
@catastrophegirl: I kept getting these calls late at night, and when I would answer the phone, the caller would hang up. Finally one night, the person stayed on the line and hemmed and hawed when I said "Hello." I quickly said "Wait!" and asked who he was trying to reach. He said, "Um, a dating service" and hung up.
At eleven o-clock at night, I think I know what kind of "dating" service he was seeking! I called the cops the next day and reported the calls. They stopped after that.
what about NCO Financial Systems? Has anyone dealt with them? I get calls from them all the time.