So i work in the billing and collections department of my call center. What do i bill and collect you ask? Timeshares. That’s right. Timeshares. It’s fantastic./s I encounter crazies, entitled people, cussers, let me speak to your managers… the whole entire dreaded spectrum. But this particular glorious morning shift day… welp the title about sums it up. This call was wild.
I usually make outbound collection calls so inbound calls are already unusual. The man who called me, let’s call him Kevin, was extra special. Kevin did not own a timeshare. I go through my spiel thanking Kevin for calling Unnamed Company and ask for his account number. Kevin YELLS at me that he doesn’t have an account number because he doesn’t own a timeshare. His brother does. Confused, i ask him if his brother is present to provide an account number, verify information, and authorize Kevin to speak on the account.
“No Shadowwolf778 HE IS NOT. My piece of shit brother is IN JAIL.” I’m floored. Stunned. I stutter an apology and ask Kevin how I can help him if he doesn’t own a timeshare and the brother who does is in jail.
“Well first off you can start by stopping your HARRASSMENT of my WIFE. You people have been sending fuckin foreclosure letters to my wife for a timeshare she doesn’t own just because she has the same name as my brother’s wife. Hold on a second let me get this damn letter.”
Kevin proceeds to read off the foreclosure notice letter sent to him. I manage to get an account number as he reads off the letter and bring up the account for the brother (I’m gonna label him Jeff and his wife Jane). As Kevin finishes the letter he hits me with the most baffling sentence yet. “Y’all have been coming after us for a dead woman’s bill. You people got the wrong Jane. Yall want my brother’s wife Jane Smith but you’re sending letters to my wife Jane Smith. I called you cause I have power of attorney for Jeff now he’s in jail and i was hoping you could get them to stop sending us letters.”
Well power of attorney changes how i have to handle the account. If he can verify the info on the account, i have to at least get him to fax us that paperwork proving power of attorney and make an attempt to settle the account. So I tell Kevin I’ve brought up an account with the number he read off the letter and I need him to verify his brother’s info just to make sure i do have the correct account. He rattles off an address, 2 phone numbers, 2 full names, a date of birth for both Jeff and Jane, and an email. All correct. I ask Kevin to hold a second, ask a supervisor how to proceed, then return to the call and tell Kevin I cant give him any info on the account’s status without proof of power of attorney but i can at least file an issue to stop mail correspondence until we receive his fax. I also tell him once we have proof of power of attorney, then we would be able to change the address he gave me to his brother’s address to stop the letters permanently. Kevin completely throws a wrench in this statement by saying “that is Jeff’s address. Why would i change it?”
Confused i tell him that we cant send letters to an address we dont have so if his brothers address is on file with us, then its the post office forwarding the letters and not us so therefore we wouldn’t be able to assist him with this issue.
Kevin goes silent a bit then says off handedly “well the letters did only start coming here after he went to jail for murder…”
Oh yeah for murder that makes sense why he went to jai- WAIT HE WHAT????
“Im sorry sir, did you say your brother is in jail for murder?”
“Yep. He killed Jane. Thats the problem I’ve been trying to tell you. Jeff murdered his wife Jane Smith in January last year and went to jail and now my wife, who’s name is also Jane Smith, is getting letters addressed to the dead Jane. I need you to give me a number to fax the death certificate and power of attorney to so you people can stop harassing us already.”
Still thoroughly confused, I give him the fax correspondence line. He takes it down and then further begins rambling about how terrible his brother and sister in law were with money, how they would buy things they couldnt afford on the sister in laws credit cards and then deliberately forward the bills to him and his wife just because of the name coincidence, and how his brother’s two sons are already “broke little hooligans with no respect for anybody just like their parents.”
I could not seem to get this man off my line so i could continue to collect payments on other accounts and I couldnt take any further action on Jeff’s account without proof of Kevin’s power of attorney due to FDCPA regulations. I am NOT trying to get sued for disclosing personal business information on a deeded piece of real estate to an unauthorized third party. Not today.
The call ended up being an entire half hour, the last 20 minutes of which were just Kevin rambling into the gory details about how his sister in law was murdered, even going so far as to invite me to try and look up news articles about the incident on google. The whole experience currently holds first place for the craziest call Ive gotten.
TL;DR- Dude calls in to my timeshare company to yell at us for harrassment bc hes getting foreclosure letters about one of our properties even though he doesnt own a timeshare. Later in the call he reveals hes getting these letters forwarded to him because he holds power of attorney over his brother’s affairs now his brother is in jail for murdering his wife… and that the murdered wife had been forwarding unwanted mail their way for years before her untimely death bc of a coincidence where she shared a first and last name with her sister in law.
submitted by /u/Shaddowwolf778
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