[tb75252]

It appears that some personal data collectors have my name associated with a couple of other people with whom I share my last name. As a result, I keep on getting calls from collectors looking for these other two people.

One of these personal data collectors has an Internet site and, indeed, if I do a search under my name, the other two people pop up too under the category "relatives".

I do not know who these other people are and I always ask the collectors not to bother me again. They generally do this, but the problem is that who is calling is always a new collection agency (or so it appears!) that calls me. Therefore they claim that they did not know about my request of not being bothered with such calls and that I am not related to these two other people.

I also contacted one of these personal data collectors and they tell me that they will gladly take my name out of their database. However, because they claim that they get their information through publicly-available data, my name (and the connected information) will reappear again the next time they upload fresh data. They are not willing to tell me where they get their data...

I could change my phone number and stop the calls for a while, but I am sure that it would be only a matter of months before my new phone number makes into some database...

What can I do to stop all this once and for all?

Thanks.
--
Tb

[phillysteakandcheese]

Like SPAM and junk mail, I'm not sure you can completely stop it.

Skip tracers and collectors will follow the leads they get to try and find people. If your name matches, you might get a call - just to see.

I periodically get calls from skip tracers looking for someone that shares my full name. I'm not sure how they verify it, but I've never had any trouble with these people once I tell them "that's not me".

[excon]

Hello tb:

It's actually worse than that. I'll bet your credit file is contaminated with THEIR bad credit.

If I were you, I'd get my once a year free credit report from ALL three bureaus and check it out. If you find errors, fix 'em and that should end your troubles.

excon

[tb75252]

My credit reports are OK. If I only could find out which public files associate my name with the other two guys I could probably attempt to get everything corrected...
--
Tb