When Debt Collector Robocalls Illegally Hijack Your Cell Phone

Heather Waites got a call on her new cell phone a few months ago from a number she didn’t recognize.

When Waites answered, she heard an automated message from a debt collection company, saying they were looking for someone she had never heard of. When she told them they had the wrong number, the message said, “I’ll remove this number.”

That automated message was a robocall, a pre-recorded message companies use to call hundreds of thousands of people at a time through computer software.

But Waites said the message never gave her a chance to opt out. The robocall she received mechanically asked for Marcie Rodriguez, and then only gave the option to “press 1 if you are Marcie Rodriguez.”

Sixty-eight percent of cell phone owners receive at least some unwanted sales calls, according to Pew Research, with a quarter of them reporting that it happens several times a week, and 34 percent say they get calls for collection of debt they don’t owe.

“Every single day across the country, people are getting hundreds of thousands of calls for debts that they don’t owe, and that’s illegal,” said attorney Billy Howard, the founder of the Consumer Protection Department at Tampa-based law firm Morgan and Morgan. “It’s a $500 minimum violation for every unwanted phone call to your cell phone, and could be worth up to $1,500 per call.”