The person with the debt are not always deadbeats, they are people who have had hard times, or been screwed by the unfair medical systems in this country, or screwed by immoral/illegal banking and mortgage practices. I have had medical debts that i have settled with the original hospital and doctors, because my medical insurance company wanted to dance around all the bills. They are truly scum. Well now the hospital has written off some the debt, i have paid some of the debt. When the hospital thought the insurance was going to pay, my bill was $150,000 for a week and a half in the hospital and 2 surgeries. When they found out they would not pay for it, the bill became $50,000 which they partly wrote off, and I partly paid. Well i was told that my bills were now taken care of, and that the debt collectors were called off. Well then those scum bucket debt collectors claimed i owe them $150,000 and then i told them it was taken care of with the hospital, so now after showing them that it was written off and paid for, they are saying i owe them $100,000. They are scum, the lowest of the low. The hospital has told them everything was taken care of, and they are still pressing me for the $100,000 which even the hospital says i do not owe them. They are now harassing me and my family, calling me a liar, when my mother says i am not home (which i am not) they tell her you are lying. They are attempting to get money i do not owe them, they have harassed my wife and children as well. So, there are deadbeats out there, but not all the people who they are after have charged up clothes, jewelry, dinners and bar tabs.  A lot of people have had a medical emergency, had their identity stolen, lost their job, had their home illegally foreclosed on, or have paid their debts and now have a company trying to trick and/or bully them into "settling" debts that they do not owe.

These people call me, never leave a message.  This is a new, unlisted phone number. I pay good money for a cell phone, why are we still harassed by unknown callers?  What about our rights to privacy?

Who cares? Everyone here needs to stop answering their cells when these kind of calls come in.  I'm sure if you knew who the number belonged to and wanted to answer it then you would.  Just don't pick up and let them call all they want.  Really, why should you care?

I just received a phone call from this number.  When I answered the phone I said "Who is this?"  Background noise.  I repeated "Who is this?"  Some woman said "Is this K?"  I repeated "Who is this?"  Woman stated "This is TCI?"  I said "What is TCI?"  She said that she wanted to talk to K.  I told her not to call my number again.  She said, "bi***, I want to take to K"  I repeated that she should not call my number again.  I plan on reporting this to the FTC.

I just got a call and pretended to be my mother they would tell me no info at all said it was classified... Wtf

I sent a certified letter demanding they cease all phone contact.  I said that I deny any debt to their agency and that per FDCPA laws once they received a written request to discontinue any and all verbal communication and only send mail. They have restarted their calls. I am saving all phone call records in my call log to speak with an attorney about their violations of FDCPA laws which are quite clear. My only advice is to NEVER acknowledge a debt with a collector and be able to provide proof of your attempts to get any company to discontinue all verbal communication. They may end up owing you money.

Stupid people.......I don't have any debt or anything like that! So I cuss them everytime they call. Period. Interupting my dinner is unexceptable!

I keep getting calls from this number and they leave no message it is really pissing me off.  What do I do to stop them??????

orginally getting calls from a 501 area code, repeatedly for 2hours back to back. They would leave a vm, but it was just background noise... blocked the number... now this 201 number started the very next day with the same thing.

Reverse boycott. We can destroy their cost/benefit ratio by consuming their service.

When a company can repeatedly call with the intent of getting money their customers can repeatedly answer or call back with the intent of not giving them any. They need people to pay with as little talk as possible. They don't want to talk with people who know they are never going to pay. Be all talk and no pay. Answer when convenient. Call back. Give no information. Verify nothing. Ask as many questions as you can. Answer none.

Don't ignore/block/report them. It doesn't work. These folks want you to ignore them for as long as you can stand to or until you give them something valuable like money or information. Ignoring them is being their good customer. Sending a cease and desist is giving information. It lets them know you are still alive and remain their good customer. Their legal model is less vulnerable than their business model. Preparing to initiate unlikely individual legal battles is being their good customer.

Be their bad customer. Make them talk to you fruitlessly for as long as they can stand to or until they stop selecting you as their customer. These companies cannot spend seconds much less minutes on the phone with every person who will never send them a dime. But they don't know who that is. You do. That knowledge is power. Every second you can keep their staff on the phone will render their business less profitable giving them a reason to never call you again.

Calling will not reset your SOL. Making a partial payment will.

I like to ask general questions they should but usually won't answer. "May I have the name and address of your agent for service of process?" Calmly and slowly ask them to spell every word in the address. Read it back for verification. Control the pace. If they are rushing then politely ask them to slowly repeat. "Are you a corporation and if so in which state are you incorporated?" Repeat your questions when you don't get direct answers. When they won't answer a question ask, "Would you like to comply with the business and professions codes of your state?" That is usually the point when they hang up on me but if they say they want to comply then begin your questions again.

Repeat while you have the spare time. These folks have many victims and few operators. If everyone calls back but pays nothing the mass auto-dialer business model becomes unprofitable. Don't aide and comfort the enemy by ignoring them. Call! Have a nice long slow friendly chat! Make them hang up first.

Press 2 for Spanish.

For any business, customers who consume the most resources but don't pay (or otherwise add value) become the least desirable. Most businesses will stop (cease and desist) soliciting an undesirable customer. Those that don't stop remain knowingly vulnerable to the actions of their undesirable customers. Few companies can afford to let everyone take a piece of them whenever they want endlessly. For instance they must pay staff to answer everyone's telephone calls which can be placed at your convenience for the joy of it. Call and consume their operator time without paying or giving information. Be a bad customer. The worst customer. Inspire them to invoke their right to refuse you service by not soliciting you.

There are certainly enough victims with unlimited long distance to take down this company so ignoring/blocking seems downright Orwellian to me. Really? We're just going to passively submit and go with a block list or however we manage ignoring an endless stream of unwanted phone calls day after day? Hell no! Unite or remain conquered. Answer/return every call - become well practiced at keeping these folks on the phone - or count yourself not amongst the free.

Received several call from this number on my cell phone asking to speak to my son in reference to an unpaid bill. 3 different call from 3 different people. Called them back and was not greeted with professional message. Voice mail disconnected phone. Callers quickly hung up when reffered to an attorneys office for further information on account they wanted to discuss. BIG TIME SCAM!

Hey 201-215-2673, your calling a buisness. Stop it, you waisting our time.

I received calls from them every day. Today I pick the phone up and a women asked my name and hung up. I called back, and asked a man to remove my phone from their data base, but he Refused and hung up. I called again and spoke with a women, she said that she called, calls and will call me tomorrow again! She did not explain what she wants and why she calls me! I asked my phone company to block their phone number and will let a police department to know about their calls.

Who was it? Got a call but left no message.

Multiple calls received daily for over a week - often 3 calls in a 5 minute span.  If answered, no person on the other end, just static. If sent to voice mail, there is an occasional message of just static followed by a disconnect.  Who is this and what will it take to stop the calls?1?!

They are harassing one of my family members so I decided to give them a dose of their own medicine.

Called *67 then their number a woman picked up, I demanded that she tell me the company name, She said it's "Business Office TCI" she wanted to know if I was returning a phone call and was a little surprised I asked her her name and she hung up.

I suggest everyone do this do this and make them shut up!

I've gotten calls as well, 1 every other day for about a week. Always just static. Strange.

Nasty woman called asking for me about a debt from last year.  Have NO idea what she was talking about.  I think it's a scam to get your CC #.

Got a call from this number, allegedly for an unpaid garbage collection bill from 2004!  This is very odd since at that time I was renting,  and the garbage bill was paid by the landlord.  Moreover, there has never been any cancellation of service  or notice of an unpaid bill from the garbage collector.   The telephone canvasser who talked with me seemed awfully anxious to get my credit card number...  so much so that when I said I would send a check and asked where to send the check was told to find the credit card because 'it would be such a shame to spend money on postage.'    

This may be a legitimate debt collection service.  If so,  they're not very intelligent because they use the same technique as someone perpetrating fraud.  I refuse to give my credit card information to some clown just because he called me up and asked for it.

ya they keep calling me too... put them on a blocked list. don't bother me anymore unless it's from a different line.

I receive multiple calls daily from this number! Often 3 calls within a span of 5 minutes. There is never anyone on the other end, just static/background noise. If they call 6 times a day, there may be one voicemail, but it's the same static/background noise.

This is ridiculous! If some posters are correct and it's a debt collector, I'm sure it's for my ex who has never lived in this house, had this number, and have been divorced from for over 5 years. Why can't people get their records straight?!?!?!

If they are a collection agency, why they never leave a vm?

I received calls from this number, never did they leave a message.  I called back the number, the woman on the other end told me that if I kept getting smart she would not remove my phone number, since it was the wrong number! She hung up.  I called back, she answered again, she told me to have a nice day and hung up.  I called again and a guy answered, he hung up before I could say anything.  I called again, and spoke with a different women, who removed my number out of their system.  I will be reporting this to the Attorney Generals office first thing in the morning.

I got a call from this number and  I listen to the voicemail but it's only background noises.....

I recieved a phone call from 1-201-215-2673.  They asked for a person which does not live here and when told the woman, she hung up.  I called back and ask who they are.  TCI.  Tech (?) Collect.  They insisted on knowing who they called for.  When I refused to say, they told me.  Apparently they ran the caller ID.  She asked why I had called and I told her I wanted to know who was calling my phone and that I wanted to run a search on them on the internet.  She said fine and hung up.  The search had one hit.  This site.  TCI is apparently newer or running under some other name or names also.

Got a call from a human at this number asking for previous (clearly deadbeat) holder of this cell phone- I've had the phone for 18 months and the calls still haven't stopped.  I told the guy that Deadbeat no longer had this number and I had no idea how to get hold of him.  He apologized and said they'd correct their records.

I get these calls too! i have no clue why im just 12 years old and got this phone for christmas but they call all the time

I have gotten two calls from this number and it's at morning time I listen to the voicemail but it's only background noises and i have had this phone for about 2 months now cause i got it as a new phone for my birthday and now I want the unknown calling to stop!

So far I have received 3 calls from this number.  Since I do not know who is calling, I let it go to voice mail.  Nothing but background noise for a message

Me, too..calls every other day... Area Code 201 is New Jersey...No clue who it is.

Here's what I've learned is possibly going on......

Holders of an original debt they have with someone are allowed to write off  the debt and probably get some sort of tax deduction from the write off...I don't know for sure because I've not researched it yet.

Then they turn around and sell a package of written off debts to some bottom feeding debt collection company who then hounds you for a debt several years old and....

Depending upon what state you live in, the debt may have already gone past the state's statue of limitations and the attempt to collect the ancient debt is a violation of the law in that paticular state.

My suggestion to everyone here is that we all start hounding our Congressmen ...Reps & Senators....before the fall elections while we still have a Congress that is relatively friendly to the interests of us little people and demand that they introduce and pass legislation and urge the President to sign into law a bill that would prohibit the selling of written off debts to third party debt collection agencies.    

Once a debt is written off by the party to whom it was originally owed that should be it.  Finis - end of discussion.  Instead of the damn thing still being sold & resold numerous times to third party collection agencies with whom the original person has no business relationship AND sold so many times & years after the original write-off that people don't even remember that they ever had a debt especially if it was something small like a disputed error on a department/clothing/home depot type, etc.  store charge that got resolved or maybe never did fully get resolved.

I do have one of those - about 8 years old now - a clothing store put a fraudlent charge on my account with them & refused to remove it.  I never made the purchase & refused to pay for a fraudlent charge.  Eventually they stopped bothering me & I thought they had FINALLY figured out to whom they should be applying the charge and had cleared my account.

Not that it mattered because I stopped doing business with them as a result of this incident & have never spent another dime in any of their retail clothing outlest nor any other retail store that I become aware of as being owned by the same parent corporation.