I have had several different phone numbers over the years. In that time I have dealt with all kinds of calls from telemarketers and especially those from collection agencies looking for people I have never heard of. I am not talking about just one phone number. I know it has been at least three. In one example I was dealing with well over 25 phone calls a day at various times from what sounded like a fax machine or even a dial up modem (Remember those things?). They would call late at night, early in the morning, at lunch time, at dinner time & etc. I finally decided to get caller id and discovered the number was coming from somewhere in New England. The phone company suggested that I try calling the number. To my surprise the number was out of service. I have since learned that this is called “spoofing”.
I even tried to treat the calls as if somebody was sending a fax. Needless to say nothing worked and the phone company agreed to change my number for free.
With one of my my last numbers, I was getting phone calls from people looking for a business called Xtreme Novelty. I honestly wondered (and still do today) what kind of company they were.
At one point the calls stopped for a period of time and then came the nonstop calls from collection agencies looking for a woman I never heard of. If you have dealt with this yourself, I can tell you one thing. They will not listen to anything you tell them.
I am convinced that they believe their information is up to date and that you are trying to avoid them. While I had this number I discovered a listing for this Xtreme Novelty on two business related websites.
1) Dunn & Bradstreet
2) Manta
I sent a certified letter to both companies to request that they remove the phone number I had from their websites. Manta honored my request. But Dunn & Bradstreet did not. I attempted to email them about this and still nothing happened. In the end, I was forced the change my number. Thanks to my experience with Dunn & Bradstreet, I do not consider them an honorable company.
But I must admit I will always find the name Xtreme Novelty humorous. Some time after I had this number disconnected, a friend of mine discovered it was issued to a local movie theater. I am sure these collection agencies & etc are still calling that number today. I sure hope they like hearing movie listings.
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