A Michelle Shaffer left message asking to call her back. Only info she left was reference number and said it was in regard to previous owner of my house - more than 14 years ago. There is no legitimate reason to contact me just because I live here. BAD PRACTICE.

I called them back and when I told them I would not give them my social security number they hung up on me. I know this is fishing for information because they told me it was in regards to student loan debt. Except I've never taken out a student loan.

Got messages over the past days to call subject number, and then refer to a reference number. Investigation showed that the company was a debt collection business. No intent on calling back.

Just got a call from them.  They left a message with a reference number.  I called back and it turns out they were looking for another person with my same name.  They asked for my birthday and then told me the last 4 of the social they were looking for to see if it was mine.  No harm no foul.  And they were very polite.

When you say "They don't give out any information on messages due to disclosure laws.  It's actually illegal, and they would risk a multi-million dollar contract by breaking the law" does that include leaving messages that say "Mr. X, this message is in regards to your student loan for $X.XX"?

Just curious

Maybe we/they can't pay due to unemployment, A**hole!

Question, my student loans do not appear on my credit report any more.  It has been 14 years.  Out of the blew I received a telephone call.  I assumed the debt was gone.

Voice mail left on business phone after 8:00 at night with no identifier other than a person's name and reference #. I called back and they said I was a reference on something for my husband but refused to discuss with me even though we have both names on everything we do. Told them I wouldn't relay a message until they told me what company they were with. It is a collection agency for something we don't even have.

All I get is a name from these people.... the person calling.  "tina bartlett" or something to that effect.  She keeps saying she wants to do a quick employee verification but won't say who she's with or for what company she needs to verify.  

I've gotten about 10 calls from them in the last week.... about 3 VMs and not one of them has left me with a comfortable enough feeling to call them back.  If someone can't leave me a detailed enough msg for me to get some understanding of why I am to call them, then Im not going to.  

Im nearly positive it's a collection agency and if I were you, I'd not answer or call them back.  I don't have any reason for them to be calling me but they still are.

I got a call from this number and then they left a reference number too saying that it was in regard to fraud on my credit card and when I called back a guy fumbled around and then the phone went dead.

Even if you pay they will call. My wife was called by these guys. Someone with her name has defaulted on a loan. They had the wrong social. The collectors are trying to find people to pay.

how about pay your billssss and they wont bother u

They called me about 20 min ago. There was a lady calling herself "Barbara Sue". She wouldn't tell me where she was calling from or what the call was in regards to.  She asked for the previous owner of my house, who was foreclosed on. I should have known that they were trying to collect on a debt but "Barbara Sue" kind of caught me off guard. When she first called, she called me by my first name, who no one knows me by.  That should have been the first red flag. That should have told me that she obviously obtained my number by looking up the new owner of the house, me, then looking in the phone book for my home number. Next, she used a line on me that I've never heard before. She said that the previous owner, who I know personally but don't keep in contact with, said that she was renting from me. I thought for a minute that maybe the previous owner did say that she was renting from me. But, the previous owner, since she was foreclosed on, doesn't even know me by my first name or my home phone number. I didn't think about this until later. I didn't confirm or deny the renting accusation. So "Barbara Sue" told me to tell the previous owner to call this 877 number with a reference number.
 So since I've read this website that has confirmed that this is in fact a creditor,  I'm not going to give the message to the previous owner. They'll have to find another way to contact her. She knows that she owes people. And maybe she'll pay or maybe she won't. I don't know. I just know that I refuse to do "Barbara Sue's" job to  for her and those creditors are getting more clever and creative everyday so WATCH OUT!

they called me looking for someone that listed me as a contact person. They said they were from the Ringwood, NJ Board of Education, that they were looking for one of their employees, and could not find them because it was summer and may be on vacation. I had never heard of the person they were looking for.

This is Pioneer Credit Recovery.  They do contract work for the US Department of Education (among other things, but this number goes to a DOE division).  You can see them second down on the right on the DOE's collection site http://www2.ed.gov/offices/OSFAP/DCS/collection.agencies.html

I'm somewhat familiar with collection industry laws.  Due to several different privacy laws, you're not usually going to get more than a reference number and a phone number out of them.  They will also only tell you the name of their company if you ask directly ("What company are you calling from?"), as anything else is illegal since it may reveal the existence of a debt to someone who is not supposed to know about it.  

As for "employment verifications," that means that they believe one of your employees is a debtor and they are trying to gather information to process a federal wage garnishment.  If they call about it and you are not a business owner then they have a wrong number, and if you let them know that it's a private residence and then ask who they're trying to verify for and say you don't know the person they should stop calling you.  Heck, you could do that even if you ARE a business owner.  Or if you don't like your employees, you could verify for them and let the garnishment go through I guess.

At any rate, they are legitimate and are doing work for the US government, but they are still a collection agency.  If you think you might actually owe student loans you might want to take care of it in case the government decides to recall your account and go after you directly.  If you don't owe anything, there's nothing they can do to you.  They're not fraudsters or anything, just sometimes a bit dumb ("I told you five times already, they don't live here!" yet they still call...).

This is Pioneer Credit Recovery, a debt collector working on contract for the US Department of Education.  Their name is on the DOE website at http://www2.ed.gov/offices/OSFAP/DCS/collection.agencies.html (second down on the right), so they are legitimate (or, as legitimate as you can consider any debt collector to be - they are at least backed by the government).  The reason the number there is different is that's their main office number.  Different divisions all have different numbers that change periodically, and this happens to be one of them (for the time being).  They don't give out any information on messages due to disclosure laws.  It's actually illegal, and they would risk a multi-million dollar contract by breaking the law.

If they are trying to verify employment, you can be sure the government is looking to garnish one of your employees.  They can't garnish them until they verify that they work there, so if you want to protect your employees who have defaulted on loans you could continue to ignore them.

Yup.... been calling me for a few days now.  Left one msg saying they wanted to verify employment but didn't say for whom.  Left reference number.  

Then another VM and they said a reference number and said to call em.  I don't trust them and Im not calling and would suggest the same to everyone else.  If they're not willing to give up any info on why they are calling.... then it's not important enough for me to get in touch with them.  

There are a few more stories on another site about this same number saying the same things.

debt collector of the highest moral disregard for humanity, a real emotional invalid

did not identify the company calling--asked for the phone number of a friend who used my name as a reference