Credit Collection Services – Generic and Ignored

waffles

April 21, 2009

Got a call today from 866-945-4973. As the phone rang and I saw the 866 prefix, I quickly Googled the number and saw it listed on some websites, so figured I should allow my voicemail to pick up. A few moments later, I received the following voicemail (X’s represent personal information I’ve left off for obvious reasons):

Please be advised this is a personal business message for XXX XXXX. If the intended party cannot be reached at this number call 866-945-4973 and we will cease further attempts to this number.

If you are not the intended party, please hang up at this time. This message contains private information and should not be played in a manner where it can be heard by others.

This call is from Credit Collection Services. This is an attempt to collect a debt and any information obtained will be used for that purpose. Visit warningnotice.com to access your personal account information. Your file number is xxxxxxxxxxx.

Thank you

Could be a scam. Could be legit. How do I know? If they are legit, and leaving voice mail instructions on how to log into a website and retrieve personal information, it’s poor business. I have a call into a lawyer for the legality of such a message, and will post that here when he responds. Perusing some comments left about similar experiences shared by others they have called leads me to wonder – what if this information is legit but they called a wrong number? My personal information would be given out to whomever they call. So when we visit the site mentioned in the voice mail, we read:

CREDIT COLLECTION SERVICES and/or CCS COMMERCIAL, LLC has contacted you regarding a payment obligation being serviced on behalf of its client. Written correspondence was previously sent to you by first class mail.

Once you enter the site via secure log-in, you will be presented with complete information, a menu of self service options, hours of operation, and a direct toll free line for personal assistance.

Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Says nothing really. Wants me to click if I got a notice or a message, but that’s it. No hit as to who they might represent.

I used to work in collections. I know the mentality. But if I do in fact owe someone something, this is not the way to handle it, because I will not log into some generic website and input a code just because some generic voice mail told me to do so. And since they leave me no way to know where this supposed debt originated, I will simply block their number and forget about it. Had they given me any indication where this supposed debt originated, I might have looked into it further. Until I hear otherwise, they can eat static.