Apr 3, 2012
I work in the cirulation department of my local newspaper. As such, we get a lot calls from collection agencies in regards to our newspaper carriers. I guess many of them have taken out payday loans or auto loans and may have fallen behind on payments. Usually, I just inform the debt collector that the person they're looking for is a newspaper carrier. I've been asked for their personal phone numbers, to which I state I am not allowed to give out that information. Then they ask if I can forward a message, to which I say "No." When they say something along the lines of, "Is this how you treat your employees - you can't give them an important message?" I simply reply, "The person you are looking for is an independant contractor and is not an employee." They usually call me a name and hang up around this point. This particular number called with an automated message for one of the carriers - it asked if I was the person, and if not, to press a number. Then they asked me to press another key if they had called the wrong number. Hopefully they don't call back.