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!
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.
I’d really love to have an open-source version of her. I’m sure the community could come up with a few more ways to apply the concept. And it’d finally be some very useful use-case for AI 😅
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
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?
I work in the industry and the prices don’t vary wildly in most western nations.
Then why do you even say things about the whole world when you know only about such a small part of it.
… It’s not that serious. Why is this a sticking point for you?
Oh my god signing up debt collectors for spam text messages is exactly the kind of praxis I needed lately. Thank you for the suggestion
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.
you can almost always opt back with a “Resume” keyword. More likely they are cycling numbers and or license keys so your “opt in” never lasts.
Aggregators and Carriers will block Voip numbers for “spam” but my theory is because the messages don’t go over their standard A2P SMS routes they purposely block them to steer consumers towards their own products. The industry is trying very hard to kill voip texting.
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.
Then I would say, YMMV. I haven’t had much experience with debt collectors, but in my case, I owed.
This is bad advice and assumes the collection agency is not an absolute piece of shit. Often you can get very low settlements out of the scummy collectors but in my experience many of the debts they harass people over are paid off, settled or otherwise non collectible. “That’s illegal” they really don’t care and will try their hardest to convince you that you still owe them money until you pay or take legal action.
