Consumer complaint received 2018-04-10
Product: Debt collection — Mortgage debt
Issue: Communication tactics — Frequent or repeated calls
Company: U.S. BANCORP (GA)

I have been receiving calls from XXXX for a week. The calls are through the workday and into the evening. They don't leave a message. Today, I learned that the number is from U.S. Bank, and it is advertised on their mortgage debt collection webpage. Despite having no past dues owed, I have been getting these calls. I called the number, today, at XXXX  after receiving another call with no message. A lady named XXXX answered the phone and asked me why I was calling. Once I told her, she told me that she couldn't hear me due to background noise. When I asked her to confirm if that was the case, she replied affirmatively ( confirming she could hear me ). I had made multiple calls from the office, today, and every person could hear me fine, so I suspected something wrong. I went to a silent room, and asked her if she could hear me, and she answered and told me that " no, she couldn't. '' I told her that I would call back, and she responded " okay. '' All this was fishy for someone that couldn't hear me once I told them I was upset about the calls I was receiving. I attempted to call back two more times. These two times, I was prompted to enter some identifying information about my property, and no one answered.

At XXXX  I called the number for US Bank on our mortgage bill, and I got a lady named XXXX. She confirmed we owed nothing and told me that she didn't know why I was receiving calls. She offered to forward me to the debt collection department, and I told her that would be fine, and I would report them to the government if the calls weren't stopped. At that point, she said, " let me try something. '' Then, she asked which phone number I was referring to. I told her, and she said that number was listed as a landline ( when it's actually a cell ). She told me that she would convert it to a cell phone in their system and mark it as " no consent. '' She told me that humans call cell phones - literally said that! So, once my phone was marked as a call with " no consent, '' the calls should stop.

At XXXX XXXX, I received another call. I answered to tell them to stop, and it was a robocall. It asked me to confirm my identity. At that point, I hung up.

I don't have time for this garbage. If it is U.S. Bank making these calls, they already get tens of thousands of dollars from me - why would they treat me that way? If it is someone spoofing U.S. Bank ( I highly doubt based on the shifty call I had with XXXX  ), they should be shut down.

The law needs to be amended. As the original creditor, U.S. Bank is free to do many things a debt collector can't. Under federal law, no debt collector can contact someone without meaningful disclosure of their identity. In this case, U.S. Bank would have broken the law, because no indication was given that this was the debt collection department at the onset of the call and before they started asking for personal information. Of course, debt collectors are not allowed to make repeated calls with intent to harass, but we know intent is difficult to prove. However, given that they have not left a message, I would say that they would have been in violation of both of these clauses, because no message identified them, and the lack of a message is definitely annoying and not helpful ( aka harassing? ).

They also are not allowed to attempt to collect a debt greater than what is owed. In this case, they are attempting to contact me, repeatedly, when I owe nothing. This, too, would be against the law if it were amended to include the original creditor.