Yikes, Trudy. How did you find out? *goes to check bank balance*

Called the number. Got abused a bit. They were very nasty about the credit card that "I" had opened, run up a bunch of charges on, and abandoned.

Eep. I was hoping I could get away with not calling them back. I googled both numbers and didn't come up with anything, just a string of websites like badnumbers.com and who-is-calling-me.info.

You can check your credit report and see if anyone opened up a credit card.

If/when you do call them, don't give them any information but your name and tell them to send you something in the mail.

Then send them a "leave me alone, bill collectors" letter and deal with the vendor directly.

Timelies all!

Argh....got a call from my folks saying that they've been talking with my SIL and she has some ideas of what to do when we're in London and Paris. Oh, yeah, and we should call her to discuss what things we want to do that require advance tickets.

Just like what Gary put in an e-mail a few weeks ago that we got no real feedback on? Yes.

I don't know why this pisses me off so much, but it does.

Thanks for your hard-won wisdom, Trudy. I checked my credit score and I don't see any credit cards besides my own. There are two "promotional inquiries" on there that I don't know anything about, one from a home loan company, and one from a bank. Not sure if I need to worry about those or not.

(The description for promotional inquiries says: "The companies listed below received your name, address and other limited information about you so they could make a firm offer of credit or insurance. They did not receive your full credit report. These inquiries are not seen by anyone but you and do not affect your score.")

Haven't decided whether or not to call the number. I don't want to be yelled at, especially for something I didn't do!

Kate it could also be someone putting down your phone number. I got a ton of bill collector calls on my home phone for the first year or so after I got the number. They were looking for someone else-- I just had to repeat many times that I did not know that person and this was not her number and to stop calling.

Yeah, I wouldn't return the call.

When I'm doing tech support, people often say "Oh, you're so patient, I don't know how you can do this job." I'm never sure how to respond to that, because A) it's my job, it's not like I was bored and had nothing else to do and B) I don't think I'm that patient, I just know there's a particular process that needs to be gone through to get the job done.

At least this is better than Windows tech support, where you have to deal with people who are iffy on the concept of the mouse and are surprised to find out they were supposed to keep track of that cord that plugs into the electrical outlet.