Capital First (Premier One, etc.) ripoff, harassment Miami Florida
Over the past week I have been inundated with calls from Capital First, Premier One and a multitude of other company names. They start out stating that I had applied for a credit card in the past year which was declined, but now they are able to offer me this fabulous, high-limit mastercard or visa with a 0% interest rate. Then they proceed to 'qualify' me by asking income and banking related questions.
At this point I usually play along and am able to get some address information, then have demanded to be removed from their call list. I think I had five or six calls before I did this, but have been called at least five or six times since. These people are incredibly frustrating.
I have not provided any critical bank account information, but may have inadvertantly given my ss# during one of the 7:30am calls. Advice?
Is it possible to sue these #%@#$er's for harassment? Is my only recourse to file complaints through my state atty general's office?
Rich
Kirkland, Washington
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Jerry
Los Angeles,California,
nuisance calls
#2Consumer Suggestion
Sun, August 04, 2002
A reply to Rich!
Capital First and it's many "offspring" are scam companies whose only interest is to obtain your bank details so they can bleed you dry, then disappear with your hard earned cash! Never ever give out your bank details or SSN to anyone over the phone or on-line, by doing so they have stolen your identity!
Tele-marketing, no matter how irritating is a legitimate sales technique, therefore there is nothing you can do legally to stop it.
There are certain things you CAN do though to noticeably reduce and impede the number of nuisance calls you get.
Tele-marketing companies use automated dail-up, a computer generates numbers at random, these computers are programmed to hang up if they get no reply or voice mail. If you have voice mail you can screen your calls, if it is important the person calling will either leave a message or ring back.
Call your local phone company (the operator) and ask to be put through to the nuisance call dept. They will give you a central address to write to, write and tell them you want to be removed from their mailing lists.
9 out of 10 Tele-marketing companies "block" their calls for obvious reasons. If you have Caller ID on your phone you will notice it comes up with either Blocked Call or Unknown Caller. You can stop ALL of these calls from coming in very simply.
To do this you must have Caller ID on your phone, call your local operator and ask them what the sequence is to block, blocked calls (in my case it is *87). Then whenever someone calls you from a blocked call they hear a recording telling them that you don't recieve calls from unknown callers so they should hang up, unblock their number and try again. Trust me Tele-marketers never do this!
Finally, for the odd ones that still get through, tell them your number is not listed, "how the hell did you get my number", this is an invasion of my privacy etc bluff, bluff, bluff and slam the phone down. I have found if you start to rant and rave about an invasion of privacy THEY normally hang up on you!
However, by far the quickest way to get rid of them is as soon as you know it's Tele-sales just tell them to go perform a certain act on themselves and hang up!