I've been dealing with this for years. Every once in a while I get a call from some random debt collector looking for a guy with my name who skipped out on his college loans. I've gotten letters threatening wage garnishment. One time they even called my Mom's cell phone saying they needed to serve me papers.
The conversation ended when it got to S/Ns(which didn't match) and me demanding they never call again. Eventually the conversations got real quick when I'd stop them before they got to begin saying, "No I didn't live at XXX, No I didn't go to college at XXX, No I don't have XXX in student loans."
Luckily I've never had to deal with the level of threats that this guy went through. It's been a while since I've gotten a call looking for this guy with my name. Maybe there's no one left who wants to try to collect this debt.
I'm very surprised that they stopped bothering you. I got debt collector calls for years for someone who used to have my number. For a while I tried to get them to stop calling me by asking for the name of their collection agency (75% hang up) or by asking that they don't contact me in any form again (compliance with the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act). The latter works, but they are legally allowed to resell your debt so the next day I'd get a call from a different collections agency. You'll never get them all to stop calling you so it's easier to deal with the one that you know.
Overall it's been an interesting experience. As someone who grew up middle class, had a scholarship, and lives frugally I would have otherwise not realized how predatory debt collectors are. Instead I've written my representatives many times asking that they create stronger consumer protections in this area.
Edit: Oh, also they aren't legally allowed to share the collections detail of the individual, so I couldn't research his debts further without claiming to be him, which I actually considered but decided against.
> You'll never get them all to stop calling you so it's easier to deal with the one that you know.
Actually there is a way. I've posted this here before, but can't find it now. Basically you call the police and file a report saying you're getting harassing calls. They'll give you a case number and tell you to call your phone company. You then call the phone company and give them the information from the police. They'll give you a phone number. Every time you get a call from the harasser, you call the number they gave you and it makes a note of where the call came from. (It's not clear if they have information that caller ID doesn't - like whether they can track down spoofed calls. I'm not sure.) After 3 or 4 calls, the phone company calls the police and gives them the information about the harasser. The police call the harasser and tell them to stop or there will be consequences. In my experience, the harasser then stops.
I meant "them" as a category (debt collectors) not "them" as a specific company. Your debt is trivially transferable; getting one company to stop is just engaging in a perverse game of whack-a-mole.
> It's not clear if they have information that caller ID doesn't - like whether they can track down spoofed calls. I'm not sure.
Yes and no. CID can be spoofed. But there's another ID (I want to say CNA, but not sure) that cannot.
VOIP is a different matter, but even there they can at least get to the originating provider (though they may not be in the US, and may have varying degrees of cooperation).
Yeah, middle class isn't as much of a target since they push back more than the poor. I read a great quote from John Rogers on twitter that put it in perspective for me:
"you're life's not good because you worked hard. Plenty of good people work hard & their life is still shit. Your life's good because you haven't been judged a sufficiently delicious morsel by someone higher on the economic food chain."
The conversation ended when it got to S/Ns(which didn't match) and me demanding they never call again. Eventually the conversations got real quick when I'd stop them before they got to begin saying, "No I didn't live at XXX, No I didn't go to college at XXX, No I don't have XXX in student loans."
Luckily I've never had to deal with the level of threats that this guy went through. It's been a while since I've gotten a call looking for this guy with my name. Maybe there's no one left who wants to try to collect this debt.