Creative vengeance against a chronic annoyance

[vsp]

A local utility company has had a deadbeat client for some time now. The client in question happens to be a local church. Neither of these facts would bother me, except that the utility company has somehow connected the church with MY home phone number in their records.

Given how I feel about organized religion in general, the notion of someone calling my apartment thinking that it was a church amused me greatly at first... until the collection agents obstinately refused to take "no, we're NOT Church X" for an answer. They'd call at 7:30 in the morning, waking up my wife (who works nights). They'd call in the late afternoon, after my wife had gone to work but before I'd come home, leaving nasty messages on the machine. They'd leave a number to call, which was extremely unproductive, as it yoinked me into voice mail that asked for my account number as a first step. Great, except (a) I've never been a customer of this utility in the first place, and (b) even if I had, it wouldn't be MY account that's the problem.

Every time I spoke to a live human being, I stressed that they had the wrong number. After about six or seven of these, I got a supervisor on the phone and filled her ear with my frustrations, and she finally seemed to get the message. She swore that the record would be flagged, and that I wouldn't hear anything more from them. This worked... for a period of a few months, which ended this morning (AND this afternoon) when they called at the crack of dawn again.

"Of course you know... THIS means war." (in my very best Bugs Bunny voice)

My first impulse was to get a supervisor on the phone again the next time the agents call and I'm at home, and to demonstrate my formidable command of the English language. Then again, been there -- done that -- the calls are still coming.

Any thoughts as to more devious ways of expressing my displeasure that won't get me sued?

[Skunks]

Talk to the church yet?

[slang]

Almost anything effective will get you sued today. You have surely thought more about this than I have. My first thought would be to *attend* the church service (if it were 30 minute drive or less) in question and make a public and messy comment about the calls you've been getting. Try calling them first, and if they fuck you around, take a couple new people with you to the service (4 or 5 friends that might like to see you go off just for the entertainment value)

Pastor: Blah, blah, blah....and we should pay our debt to the Lord and ask forgiveness (or whatever he's talkingabout, use some creativity)

Slang: (stands up and shouts) Yeah,we should pay the Lord like we should all pay the fucking (whichever) bill!! Who is the treasurer of this church? (turns to the congregation) The (?) company has been calling the bogus number listed for the church....which happens to be *MY* FUCKING home number for (?) amount of time trying to collect on the GOD DAMNED (?) bill! Keep that in mind when you tithe folks.

Makes you wonder what the fuck they're doing with the money you donate, cuz it's NOT paying the (?) bill.

He'll shit a monkey, but just seeing his reaction would be worth it to me. Glad I could help out with this situation.

[tw]

How much does the church owe?

[vsp]

I thought about confronting the church, but a few thoughts struck me:

* I'm about 95% sure that I have the right church, from context provided by the collection agents, but there are more than one in the Philly area with the same name. Getting the wrong one and raising a public stink would be most embarrassing.

* In a weird way, the church itself isn't the problem. They're not the ones calling my apartment; they're not the ones who promised to STOP calling and then resumed without cause. If they want to be deadbeats, that's their option; I've certainly had bills from time to time that I disagreed with and refused to pay on principle. I'm not happy with the church; I'm FURIOUS with the utility company.

* How do I know that the utility company is accurate with their charges towards the church? Their records were certainly wrong when it came to phone numbers. For all I know, they may have switched the billing records of the church and the Nantucket Volunteer Fire Department.

I don't know how much is owed; that, they haven't said. I probably don't want to know, as if it was some piddling amount my thirst for vengeance would increase exponentially.

My main notion is that if there's one thing public companies hate, it's bad publicity. TV-news consumer advocates, letters to the editor, radio call-ins, and that sort of thing might raise some hackles at the utility company, but much of my evidence is hearsay at this point (phone conversations), so I don't know if Herb Denenberg would be ready to run with this yet. I have a web page that I whipped up detailing the whole sordid affair, with both parties' names in big capital letters throughout and keyworded enough times to be Google-friendly... but I chmodded it back down after a moment's consideration, until I decide whether I want to go that route or not.

[SteveDallas]

Call your state senator and explain the situation and ask how to contact the Public Utilities Commission. Your senator may have enough connections to make a phone call and stop it, and may offer to do so. If not, call the PUC. A complaint to them will get the attention of the utility co.

I notice you did not mention that you called the utility company itself. In theory this is a good first step (while you'd think a collection agency with half a brain would check out the validity of a phone # if they wanted to be successful in collecting the debt, this is apparently not the case, but they will listen to the utility co. cause that's who's paying them), but you are unlikely to be able to reach the proper person without a lot of arm-twisting of people at their call center, and they will probably just tell you they can't give you any information about other people's accounts.

[juju]

I had the same thing happen to me! They weren't calling for a church, though. They were calling for a guy with the same name as me, except his middle initial was different.

The same collection agent would call my house <i>every single day</i> -- sometimes twice a day, and he would not take "Donald L. Morton does does live here!" for an answer. When given that statement, he would simply apologize, agree never to call here again, and then call back the very next day (and the day after that, and the day after that..). It was like talking to a brick wall!

He had the worst voice, too. It was horrible to listen to. It sounded like he had been smoking for 3000 years. It's a miracle he could even speak.

Finally, my wife called the collection agency and threatened legal action, saying, "The next message you hear will be from my lawyer." Apparently, they don't like that kind of talk, and that did the trick for us. No more calls from Mr. Smoking Man after that!

Perhaps you could formulate a standard cease and desist letter?

[elSicomoro]

Out of curiosity, who is the utility, if you know? Peco? If it's Peco, call their consumer relations department on Market St. Better yet, send them a certified letter.

A couple of other questions: Do you have caller ID, and if so, does the phone number show up on it?

You may want to try the PA Attorney General's Office, or like Steve said, the PUC.

Of course, if you want to spend a few extra bucks a month, and get rid of more annoying calls, get Call Intercept from Verizon.

[Elspode]

You might also want to consider making a per-call flat fee for allowing them to talk to you, say, $25.00 per call. Then, bill them at the end of the month for the number of times they've called, and when they don't pay, submit the bill to a collection agency (they work on a percentage...if they don't collect, you don't pay).

Seems sort of synchronistic and fair to me, anyway.

[vsp]

The sons of bitches are BACK.

The Public Utilities Commission has been notified.

EDIT: Finally got through to PSWC themselves, and as I expected they'd say, the harassing parties are an outside agency that have their signals crossed. Time will tell whether THEY will make anything change.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Agree to pay the bill in full, in cash, in person.
Ask them where to bring it.
Go to that address and kill everyone there.

[juju]

Well, like I said before. Try threatening legal action. It worked for me.

[vsp]

Originally posted by juju
Well, like I said before. Try threatening legal action. It worked for me.

That's the most entertaining thing about what happened on Friday... _I did_. Evidently, they couldn't have been more indifferent.

8 AM: The phone rings, waking up my wife. I pick it up and say "Hello," and I hear "This is the Philadelphia Suburban Water Company, calling for the St. Paul's Baptist Church..."

I said one word: "SUPERVISOR."

"Excuse me?" "Your supervisor. NOW."

I got the name of the supervisor, and then opened up with both barrels -- this was the THIRD TIME that I'd reached a supervisory level. My apartment is STILL not a Baptist church. My phone number STILL has no connection with anyone even remotely related to said church. I'd been told repeatedly that the number would be removed and the record would be fixed.

"I'm sorry, sir. I will have the record flagged so that you won't be called again."

Not good enough, lady. I've been told that twice already. You're on the phone with me now. Is this getting through?

"I'm SORRY, sir..."

I said <b>"The NEXT phone call that I get from your company will have me on the phone to my lawyer."</b> She apologized again, I hung up, and I got dressed and drove to work.

At 9:30 AM, my wife called me at work -- a different collections drone from the same company CALLED AGAIN THAT MORNING! (That also woke her up, but the answering machine got that one.)

I called the number that the collection agent left, and got PSWC's voice mail service. After a dozen or so attempts during the day, I got a human being... who couldn't find the church in their records at first, but eventually located it, and confirmed that my phone number was completely different from the church number they had listed.

So why am I getting harassing calls AGAIN?

"Oh, that's a separate agency."

He claimed that HIS boss would get on the phone with the collection people and straighten the problem out. That's not going to keep me from chatting with the Pennsylvania PUC, though. Either that, or I need to figure out who my lawyer is.

[Torrere]

My first reaction was actually: "Threaten legal action. That ought to be able to subdue them."

My second was to remember:

glockwolf: hey, at least you went to a school with a decent acronym. I went to WCSC (wick-suck)

and to conclude that PSWC ought to be pronounced accordingly.