Heading out into the really far realm of uncomfortable 3rd party is calling neighbors. These calls depend on several things, first being full knowledge of the person's address, and an understanding of geography:
"I've never heard of the guy. No, I don't live in Seattle - dude, you have the wrong fucking AREA CODE for Seattle. I'm in fucking OREGON. Moron."
The borrowers we're trying to track down often tend to be transient, so often they've moved on in the distant past, leaving only memories...and other unpaid bills.
"Her? Yeah, her and her deadbeat boyfriend skipped out on a couple months of back rent - ran out in the dead of night, and I had to fumigate the place before I could rent it again. You find her, you let me know, okay?"
"Oh crap, that was the guy who set fire to his lawn right before the cops busted down his door, wasn't it? Man, that was funny..."
Most of the time I never got any useful information from neighbors, but there is always that "collector's legend" of the neighbor who brings the phone over to the neighbor across the street, and they pay. So we keep calling neighbors.
I had one borrower I had pinned down to being self-employed and definitely at the home address. All other reference avenues turned into dead ends, so I decided to break down and finally call a neighbor.
"Hey there, I'm trying to reach Mrs. Jones."
"Nope, that's my neighbor. Who are you?"
"Oh, I'm calling long distance from New York and the other number I thought was hers in disconnected and I need to speak to her. Is there any way you can get a message to her?" (Neighbors will often leave messages - that's pretty common. Not that they ever call back, but still.)
"Hold on - they just pulled in. Let me see if the cordless reaches that far."
A rustling on the end of the line, and then:
"Hello? Who the fuck are you and why are you calling my neighbor to get ahold of me?"
"Well, I think we may have a business matter of yours in our office..."
"You're a FUCKING BILL COLLECTOR and you called my FUCKING NEIGHBOR? Listen here you miserable little shit...(slightly muffled) Stop your goddamn whining, and I'll get you your fucking animal crackers in a minute...(back in my ear) NEVER FUCKING CALL THIS NUMBER FOR ME AGAIN." *click*
Okay - just short of legend. Now if only I'd have gotten her to pay...
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2 comments:
Yeah I'd be pissed if they called my house to track down my neighbors. It isn't my debt and I am not my neighbor's mommy. I would feel it was harassment and I am really surprised they can get away with that.
I am annoyed enough as it is, the couple who had the phone number I have previous to us are some kind of deadbeats and we get calls for them at least 2 times (sometimes as much as 6+) a week from people looking to collect from them and we've had this phone number for 2 years now. It was randomly assigned to us by Cox Communications when we signed up for a land line and we've never met these people or anything but still a lot of the bill collectors seem to believe we're lying when we say it isn't their number and we don't know them. It makes me particularly cranky when we get a call at 6am for them but what can you do I guess... I put our number on the do not call list and ask their collectors not to call again after explaining it isn't there number (sometimes they continue to call even after, until I threaten to report them and their company). So I get pissed that we're getting calls for these people all the time but I understand as it may have been their last known number in the system and until I explain, collectors don't know any better but if the collector called for my neighbor... oh I'd be totally pissed and would make the call as unpleasant as possible and if I could figure out anyone to report them too I would.
Jennifer,
Any time I'd call a neighbor I'd make damn sure they still lived there. Can't reveal it's a debt to them either - just had to say "a business matter and I've been unable to reach them". (Yeah, like that fools anyone.)
I also got the impression that the neighbor I called wasn't particularly fond of the borrower I was trying to reach. I think I was an excuse to play "poke the asshole neighbor".
And yeah, I got a LOT of "you want to talk to my neighbor you CALL MY FUCKING NEIGHBOR, ASSHOLE!!!" responses. They're not nearly as fun to write about though.
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