The "called in error" rate is not pretty rare. It's quite high in my experience. There are a number of reasons:
1) People who owe money often put fake phone numbers on forms so they can't be contacted. They will sometimes randomly choose your number.
2) Debt collectors don't believe you when you say, "There's nobody here by that name. You have the wrong number," because that's what people who owe them money try to say.
I had this happen to me when I moved into a new apartment and got a new phone number. I told them 3 or 4 times that the person they were looking for was not at this number. I even told them that I had recently moved and was just assigned the number. They literally said, "Yeah, right."
So I called the police. They filed a telephone harassment report for me. I then sent the report to the phone company who set up a tap for me. Whenever the debt collectors would call, I would wait until the call ended, dial a special number and it would figure out what number called me (even if they turned on caller-ID blocking), and note it in a file. After 3 or 4 times, they sent it to the police who contacted the debt collectors and told them to stop harassing me or they'd face criminal charges.
It shouldn't have to come to this for innocent people, but this is by no means an isolated or rare incident. Every person I know has had these types of calls, with differing amounts of success at getting rid of them.
1) People who owe money often put fake phone numbers on forms so they can't be contacted. They will sometimes randomly choose your number.
2) Debt collectors don't believe you when you say, "There's nobody here by that name. You have the wrong number," because that's what people who owe them money try to say.
I had this happen to me when I moved into a new apartment and got a new phone number. I told them 3 or 4 times that the person they were looking for was not at this number. I even told them that I had recently moved and was just assigned the number. They literally said, "Yeah, right."
So I called the police. They filed a telephone harassment report for me. I then sent the report to the phone company who set up a tap for me. Whenever the debt collectors would call, I would wait until the call ended, dial a special number and it would figure out what number called me (even if they turned on caller-ID blocking), and note it in a file. After 3 or 4 times, they sent it to the police who contacted the debt collectors and told them to stop harassing me or they'd face criminal charges.
It shouldn't have to come to this for innocent people, but this is by no means an isolated or rare incident. Every person I know has had these types of calls, with differing amounts of success at getting rid of them.