by Tricia
Jen sent me a link to an article that is a must share!
Several times in the past month I’ve received a recorded call from “Heather” with “Card Services” offering to lower the interest rates on all of my credit cards to 6.9 percent. She then instructs me to “press 1” to be transferred to a live agent.
[Via Yahoo]
It turns out that these “Heather” calls are claiming that they can lower your interest rates by negotiating with your creditors. In actuality, you’ll receive a debt pay down book. They are asking for a lot of money for information you can get for free by checking out a personal finance book from the library.
I get a lot of those recorded calls. Most are for an auto warranty but I have received a few of these calls that claim that they can reduce your interest rates. I don’t recall if the woman in the recording was Heather or not – but it sounds very familiar to the call in the article.
My rule of thumb is to not do anything when someone I don’t know calls me – even if it is someone wanting to do a survey. I tell them that I never do anything over the phone and to please not take it personally. 98% of the time they hang up on me without even saying good bye so I’ve been following that rule for quite a few years.
Thanks Jen for sharing this article with us!
Hi, I also have received the same calls and never give my info or even finish hearing what the recording wants lol.. I too have the rule of never giving out information on a “survey” ever. These days you have no idea who is trying to get that information from you or what they want with it. So, once I say that I don’t do any surveys they usually hang up and never call again. Works for me!
Those recording calls always make me very weary. I never, ever order anything over the phone and definitely don’t sign up for a service. I don’t confirm who I am either. I know, call me paranoid but it works for me.
“I tell them that I never do anything over the phone and to please not take it personally.” Words to live by! I’m going to try to develop that as a habit. I have a monthly (local) charity already; I don’t need extras blindsiding me over the phone.
Recently I agreed to donate to a charity that telephoned, but then I looked them up online and found they had a very low rating. So I noted that on the statement they sent me, and did not send them a check. It would have been easier, though, to have just turned them down in the first place.
Those things call despite our being on the no-call lists (our state and the national one). We changed over to a $30/year VOIP phone so now we see caller id (although it sometimes prints weird things for people we know, so not 100%). They also lie about their return number, making it one flipped digit from your own, for example, so it’s impossible without going through and browbeating the agent to find out who they really are to file a complaint.
I never answer phone surveys either or buy anything people are trying to sell me over the phone. Just pure principal. Even though there was once a newspaper that called trying to sell me their subscription, and I had been considering buying one from them for a couple of months. I however (due to my principal) said “no” to them on the phone. I thought, that when I was ready to buy their subscription, there are so many other ways I could do so, when the time was right: internet, phone & visit their offices. It turned out to be the right decision, because I really couldn’t afford a subscription at that time. So having such an “iron-clad” principle (or rule of thumb) has saved me from a lot of “impulse purchases”, lol. 🙂
I did a lot of research for those auto warranty calls. There are tons and tons of people getting calls from this company. File complaints. They were calling 2 of my lines (a newly acquired cell phone and a newly installed skype line). I tracked down the company and made lots of legal threats (politely of course). They haven’t called me back since.
The company information:
Federal Auto Protection
Phone 888.295.0740
It’s almost a daily message on my answering machine when I get home from work, “This is your last courtesy call before we can no longer lower your credit card interest rates.”
Really? They’ve been telling me that for almost a year now. Even if I didn’t pay my CCs off every month I wouldn’t trust someone calling out of the blue offering to help me like that.