How not to win friends By Warren Bluhm News-Chronicle Oh my, what a force of nature Red can become when her dander is up. The topic this time is home invasion. OK, it's really about phone etiquette, but when a pushy person invites him- or herself into your home routine via that heinous invention of Mr. Bell, it sure feels like home invasion. Our story begins with a recorded message on our answering machine, "Please call 1-877-etc. with regard to a business matter." Well, our number is unlisted, so Red's dander first started rising that someone outside our circle of friends and business associates was calling. And anyway, isn't it illegal to leave a recorded message in Wisconsin? After stewing for a few minutes, she decided to call the number. The goal was to find out the nature of the business matter and how they got the phone number. It would be a few days before we accomplished that goal. "I'm wondering if you could tell me how you got my phone number and what this is about," Red said evenly into the phone. Her blood pressure started to rise when the response was a request for her name and phone number. "Don't you know? You called me." To make a long story fit the confines of a newspaper column, the person on the other end would not divulge anything until Red gave her name and phone number (odd because eventually we learned a name and our phone number was on the computer screen at the other end), and Red would not divulge anything until she had an understanding of what this was about. Tempers flared and the person with the business matter hung up on Red once, twice, three, four times. The second time she heard Red's voice, the person on the other end started screaming. What we learned over the course of those phone calls and hang-ups was the name of the company, an explanation that the firm was involved in "financial management," and that they believed Red's name is Melissa. Red's name is not Melissa. With Red's promise to call the Wisconsin attorney general and the other person's promise to sue for harassment (an interesting premise from the company that initiated the call), the adventure concluded for the night. Since the same person answered the phone every time, we figured it was some fly-by-night telemarketer that couldn't even afford a phone bank. But a couple of days later, curiosity got the best of me and I looked the company up on the Internet. Immediately I called Red. "You're not going to believe this, but I'm looking at that company's Web site," I told her. "It's a collection agency." Red has never had any trouble paying bills and has an impeccable credit rating. I've had my share of trouble in life, but I am all caught up. A collection agency would have no reason to call us. So she called the company and politely explained that somehow the wrong phone number had been attached to a name. One would think the company would like to know this. Instead, a brutish young man told Red she was lying and "Now you listen to me, Melissa ..." On top of that, when she got home that night, there was a new, recorded message on the answering machine: "Please call 1-877-etc. with regard to a business matter." We have a new, unpublished phone number, and somewhere Melissa is evading at least one collection agency. We don't know if Melissa deliberately gave the wrong number - ours - or if some numskull at the agency entered it into the data base wrong. Red's instinct is to call Consumer Protection and let them sort it out. I know from experience that some folks in the collection business seem to enjoy treating people like criminals. I'm also confident that most people who get behind in their bills are not criminals, just people who established a credit line expecting to be able to pay it off and then were sidetracked by the unexpected. Did I say they treat people like criminals? That's not quite true. Our criminal justice system is based on the premise that you are innocent until proved guilty. Too many collectors take pride in opening with "Now you listen to me, Melissa ..." Those people need to find new jobs at something more suited to their abilities. Like breaking kneecaps. Bluhm is editor of the Door County Advocate and former managing editor of The News-Chroncile. His column appears Tuesdays. Contact him via e-mail at [email protected] or call 920-743-3321