'I just wasted as much of their time as I could': Pesky debtors face petty revenge for blowing up dude's work phone

Author image for Ally Perry
Ally Perry • Writer and Editor
Mar 25, 2024 4:00 PM EDT

I don't think I know a single person under the age of 40 who will answer every call they get without question. The main reason for this is that these days, there is a significant chance whoever is on the other end of the line is an annoying stranger who we don't want to hear from. Spam callers, scams, and cases of mistaken identity are rife, so it makes sense to just avoid those unknown numbers.

That being said, not everybody gets that luxury. Some have no choice but to take the chance and suffer the consequences, as with one Redditor who was inundated with calls about the debt of the person who had had his phone number before him.

As he was working in tech support, he had no choice but to answer the phone whenever it called—which meant he came up with a devious method to confound these unwanted communications. The petty revenge lovers of Reddit applauded him, as well as adding a couple of their own strategies. 

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  • 01
    r/pettyrevenge u/jeffriestubesteak ⚫ 1d • Won't stop calling me to collect someone else's debt? How would you like their new phone # and address? Oopsie, hung up on ya.
    via jeffriestubesteak

    Header image: NordWood Themes

  • 02
    A tale as old as time. You get a new phone, and it blows up with calls from debt collectors. Most people can just send unknown callers to voicemail. I, unfortunately, worked tech support for a large company at the time, so I had to answer every call.
    via jeffriestubesteak
  • 03
    I'll spare you the details of how annoying those folks are. "Very" should suffice. And I got tired of it pretty darn quick. I put up with it as long as I could, but then something broke. I needed to with these inasmuch as it was possible and legal to do so.
    via jeffriestubesteak
  • 04
    Mostly, I just wasted as much of their time as I could. But for the really annoying ones, I had a routine that I developed over the course of about a year. This is my petty revenge, in the form of a dialogue:
    via jeffriestubesteak
  • 05
    Dunner: Is this Joe Debtor? Me: Is this about the unpaid phone bill from 2010? Dunner: Yes. Mr. Debtor, are you going to pay- Me: Hang on a sec. I never said I was your dude. I work with him, though. He sold me this phone a couple of weeks ago and told me I might be getting a few of these calls. Listen, could you please just call him directly? | can give you his new address and phone number, and the phone for our HR department if you want that too. Dunner: That would be wonderful. Thank you! Me:
    via jeffriestubesteak
  • 06
    Invariably, they'd call back thinking I had just accidentally disconnected. I'd say something like "Sorry. Cell coverage sucks around here. I apologize. Do you still want me to [click]." You'd be surprised how many times they'd try again. I answered- and pretended to accidentally hang up- every single time. They all eventually figured it out. Not before getting REALLY ANGRY though.
    via jeffriestubesteak
  • 07
    Jayhawker_Pilot 1d I have a dead beat sister. Like I don't think she has ever paid a single bill ever. When the bill collectors would call, my response was "IF YOU FIND HER, CALL ME BACK WITH HER PHONE NUMBER AND ADDRESS SHE OWES ME MONEY". And I said it at 100+db sounding never got a call back ever.
    via Jayhawker_pilot
  • 08
    blondeheartedgoddess 1d Dude, I'll use this next time one calls me looking fir my ex-husband. We divorced over 20 years ago and I still get calls. He does owe me alimony... about $20. It was a token amount just in case he won the lottery, the door would be open. Not that he'd ever tell me though. LOL
    via blondeheartedgoddess
  • 09
    00 M1lud 1d If there are multiple debt agents, record their phone numbers. Then when one calls, give them another's number!
    via M1lud
  • 10
    mjcjb5 1d Well done. I get a phone call from home prospector thinking I own a house they want to buy in a town I lived in more than 10+ years ago. It must be a dilapidated house in a sought after area. After a while, I would just negotiate with them. Seek out their offer, act interested, tell them to put it in writing and text it to me in a PDF. That usually causes them issues. I offer to take less. I basically get them to waste time. I have flipped houses before so I know what phrases get them
    via mjcjb5
  • 11
    Mediocre_Network_646 1d Just say someone's at the door, and tell them to hold on. Then go on your day.
    via Mediocre_Network_646
  • 12
    OutlawJoseyMeow 1d "The old debtor can't come to the phone right now. Why? Because they're dead”
    via OutlawJoseyMeow
  • 13
    oowoowoo 1d Those guys are relentless. For most of a year I had debtor calls. I was job hunting so I was picking up every call. Eventually my last call with them ended on a better note and I said "My name is not Patrick, no one named Patrick is at this number, I don't know any Patricks, and this has been my number for many years." The person on the phone was quite understanding and eventually I stopped getting debtor calls all around.
    via oowoowoo
  • 14
    Flossy40 22h When debt collectors kept calling my home for somebody else, I got frustrated enough to talk to a law enforcement officer. I followed his suggestion and this is how it went. When the caller identified himself, I pushed a couple of buttons on the phone so it beeped. Then informed him that by the laws of my state, I had to tell him that he was being recorded. I asked him to identify the company he worked for, and his first and last name. (Only got the first.) Then I asked if there wer
    via Flossy40
  • 15
    BeautifulPhantom1 1d I aspire to be this devious. Thank you for the script. I'll have to remember it the next time my ex's debtors decide to get a hold of me 20 years after the divorce.
    via BeautifulPhantom1
  • 16
    strywever 1d For years I got collection calls for Lakeesha Jones. Lakeesha, wherever you are, I hope life got better.
    via strywever
  • 17
    Oracle_of_the_Skies 1d Nice! I always try to start out nice because I got these calls a lot, and I figured they were trying to do their job. But one dude tried to argue with me saying he had a recording of my voice from our call last week. He told me that he would pull up that voice recording to prove to me. I told him I'd wait. When he got back on the line he was very apologetic. "I'm sorry sir. I will be sure to lose this number." And the calls stopped for a while. Then they started up again a
    via Oracle_of_the_Skies
  • 18
    Spdsk84miles 1d My favorite is pretending that you are hard of hearing and hollering into the phone..." Mom is that you.... Tom....speak up I can't hear you" etc...
    via Spdsk84miles
  • 19
    kagato87 1d A while back when I got a new number this happened. It settled down quick enough. I also got messages from a "neighbor" asking me to come fix their computer. A few other non memorable calls and messages looking for him. My favorite was a random message, "send pics." That was a funny one, so I decided to stick the phone number into Google and it came back with some escort service (illegal in my region). Oh I forgot to mention, it was a work phone that came with a job. Guess I have som
    via kagato87
  • 20
    BickNlinko 1d For anyone in the US you can look up the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act(FDCPA). You can basically just tell them that you're not the debtor and they need to send the debtor a letter and to stop calling and harassing you. 쇼 15 Reply jeffriestubesteak OP. 1d OP here. I did that, or variations of that. Didn't work. They would promise to take my number out of their database, make a note in the case file, whatever. But the next day I'd get another call. Or worse, they'd accuse me of
    via BickNlinko

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debt tech support phone Reddit revenge phone call spam phone calls petty revenge reddit thread
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