Since moving to Jersey, my answering machine has been inundated with messages from a “Jeff Price” at “NCO Financial Systems Incorporated”. “Jeff,” a computer-generated voice, is attempting to collect a debt. I figured this was an easy case of mistaken identity with a new phone number, given that I have never dealt with credit at all, but I was once again reminded that Google is your friend in modern America…
Turns out, of course, that NCO Financial Systems is a scam. And they use a lot of numbers. Mine, for those scoring at home, was 888-480-1534, which appears as the latest and greatest in the comments.
There are a lot of pretty obvious signs that this is bogus, including the fact that an automated message that is always the same leaves the message (rather than a human being) and, more importantly, they do not identify the person allegedly owing the debt or the nature of the debt being collected.
It’s unclear whether NCO buys actual debts and just uses shady practices to inflate them or incite repayment – or whether NCO just starts spamming phone numbers with requests to have people pay phantom debts in the first place. But with debt and debt defaulting becoming an ever larger part of our world, it’s good to get versed on the fact that someone saying you owe them money is probably lying in pretty much all cases.
In any event, the general principle of capitalism applies. It is far easier to attempt to steal from idiots than to do actual work or anything resembling productivity. For all we may criticize a social ethos that created gladiators, orgies, and Saturnalia, we should take a good long look at what the profit motive convinces people to do.
Or as Bob Dylan put it:
“Now, it don’t seem to me quite so funny
What some people are gonna do fer money.
There’s a brand new gimmick every day
Just to take somebody’s money away.
I think we oughta take some of these people
And put ’em on a boat, send ’em up to Bear Mountain . . .
For a picnic.”
