In article ,
Richard J Kinch wrote:

Joseph Gwinn writes:

I get dunning calls from time to time, and it's always in error. The
collection agencies check nothing out, instead expecting you to prove
that you don't owe.

They don't expect anything because they don't listen to you no matter
what the truth is or what you say. These are not collection agencies in
the old-fashioned sense of following up on slow payers. They're simply
suckers themselves in the business of extorting money by harassing
people en masse from a list of names they bought from somebody who
largely invented the list. For them to listen and analyze what you say
would be too expensive. Everybody gets the same treatment, whether or
not they've found the right person or the debt is valid, which in my
case is never true. Yet I still get multiple calls daily. The
harassment is minor enough that no one defends themselves forcefully
from it, and the collective nuisance is nobody's business to deal with.
They're literally beggaring for a living.

I've found that counter-threats of legal action work, or simply inviting
them to sue, where they will get to prove to a real Judge that I owe.
This usually convinces them that I will be more trouble that the debt is
worth.

And it steals their main threat, which very much changes the tone of the
conversation.

Joe Gwinn