Debt collectors pay to send you SMS messages, around $.003-$.01 it doesn’t sound like alot but trust me it adds up. They pay the same rate for incoming SMS and even more for MMS. So this holiday season, instead of blocking why not sign their numbers up for every spam SMS under the sun?
Happy Holidays!
In Australia there are harrassment laws that strictly regulate how often and in what way debt collectors are permitted to contact you.
https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/debt/what-debt-collectors-can-and-cant-do
Idk, if you reply, they’re incentivised to send you even more messages. Think it through before doing anything.
That’s one take. If they have your info then somebody told them you owe money and they will not stop until you force them to by blocking or calling them and convincing them there is nothing for them. In my experience the right thing is report them to the CFPB, FTC, FCC or whoever takes complaints. That will put a top to them for a moment until they register a new LLC and start sending again. If everyone spam replied it would hit their wallets.
Someone recently posted that: https://youtube.com/watch?v=RV_SdCfZ-0s an AI granny, wasting scammer’s time. I think we need more like that. 😆
They need to make an open source SMS version that just spams the collector number.
pay to send you SMS messages, around $.003-$.01
You cannot know that because it depends a lot on which country and which network.
I gave a pretty big range that I absolutely know most fall into. They could be paying more or less but it’s unlikely.
How can you absolutely know most telecom providers in all the 200 countries and their prices?
If everyone does this, it eventually won’t work since once you opt out of most of these, they require you to manually opt back in before sending you more texts. Also, many of those automated SMS messages don’t recognize VoIP as valid to receive SMS which is probably what most of these call centers are using. I encounter that issue with my Google Voice number not being recognized because I try to use it for spam like this and often am told that it’s not a valid phone number.
If you owe money, you are obligated to pay it back. Running away from it will make things worse. What you can do is offer them $1, stating that you can’t afford to pay anything more. They MUST accept an attempted payment (in the US). They will demand more, but if you stick to it, they will accept your payment.
That being said, there are some debts that can be immorally large. Medical debt and college debt are made with imaginary numbers.
However, once you have it, it never goes away.
If I recall, there are instances where this is not good advice as paying anything, even $1, resets time limits and confirms a debt.
I’ve had a incorrect bill sent to a debt collector simply because the fix took longer than the billing system allowed and sent outstanding balances to collections automatically.
Another friend had a zombie debt, one that had been dismissed, pop up again and paying anything would restart the clock.
