What to do if your new mobile phone number previously belonged to the debtor of the bank. How does the search for a debtor take place?

Dionysus Nagibin, the creator of the unique SkidMe portal, shared his unpleasant mobile adventure with Telecomblog and asked for help in sorting out this matter.

He recently purchased a MegaFon SIM card. A girl called him, she introduced herself as a collector and demanded to pay for the outstanding loan. It turned out that Dionysus's number previously belonged to another person. In response to our hero’s assurances that the collector had contacted the wrong address, he was required to provide the bank with confirmation - an agreement with the telecom operator. Our hero was rude to an annoying girl, and now the equally annoying head of the security service calls him 5 times a day.

Dionysus, like any other busy person, has no extra time: “I bought a number at MegaFon and don’t want other people’s problems to be blamed on me,” he claims. In addition, it is not clear whether the callers are scammers or real collectors - according to the hero of this situation, the callers did not say anything about the amount of debt or about the bank, and the agreement with the telecom operator that they demand contains passport data, which must be provided to the scammers extremely dangerous.

To understand this situation, I decided to call the numbers of annoying collectors, contact MegaFon, and also take comments from representatives of MTS and Beeline. I wanted to understand what happens after the number goes on sale again, whether it is possible to resolve this situation without the direct intervention of the new owner of the number and to find out whether the collector is really calling.

An attempt to call the collectors and question them was unsuccessful - my telecom operator reported that the annoying numbers turned out to be invalid. I tried to find information about the organization and reviews about it on the Internet by phone number. It turned out that the numbers belonged to the collection agency Sequoia Credit Consolidation. Reviews about Sequoia turned out to be terrible - everyone complains about the incompetence of employees, calls to the wrong address and rudeness.

MegaFon did not please with good news: “If they call from a bank, then only the subscriber can resolve the issue with the bank or other creditor. To do this, he has an agreement with a start date and his passport details. He can contact the police with a statement of unjustified extortion from bank, since the bank must check the contacts of its debtors, or respond to requests by turning off dialing. Only the police can check whether scammers are calling him or not."

MTS explained why operators are forced to reuse the number: “The operator’s number capacity is an objectively limited resource, in accordance with Russian legislation, distributed by the regulator. Taking into account the proliferation of a huge number of devices using SIM cards, the secondary sale of unused numbers is standard operator practice.”

Beeline spoke in detail about what happens to the number after it is no longer used: “After the subscriber’s SIM card is inactive for 90 days (there were no calls, SMS, account top-ups), it goes into pre-blocked status, ", which remains for 180 days. If the subscriber has not been active during this time, the number is released and can be re-sold. The balance of the number is completely updated, so that the new subscriber cannot receive any debts from the previous user." In addition, Beeline said that mobile operators do not participate in proceedings between various organizations and subscribers: “We do not transfer user numbers to any databases (of banks and other organizations), so we cannot remove them from there.”

So, the collection agency turned out to be real, but judging by the reviews, it employs incompetent employees. Dionysus will still have to find time and provide the agency with an agreement with the operator or write a statement to the police (unfounded extortion - the bank’s fault). Under no circumstances show all organizations a contract that contains your passport details! First, find out who is calling you, check this information and only then act - give them what they require, or contact law enforcement agencies.

The executive search for a debtor is a compulsory collection measure, which is based on Art. 65 Federal Law No. 229. It includes not only establishing the location of the defendant, but also his property, accounts and income. The lender also has the right to independently search for borrowers and transmit this information to the FSSP.

Today, 147 million people live in Russia, of which 50 million took out loans from banks, microfinance organizations or private lenders. More than half did this more than once.

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Due to the poor economic situation in the country, 10% of borrowers cannot pay off their debts.

People are afraid to contact banks or collection agencies and begin to hide from them:

• stop answering phone calls;
• the door is not opened to anyone;
• quit their job;
• change their place of residence.

Banks want to return the money along with interest and begin to search for the debtor. Each bank has its own search system, but in general terms they are similar. Security officers are former law enforcement officers, and because of this, there is a similarity in actions.

Directly, the search itself is divided into several stages. For each of which, certain employees of various collection departments are responsible.

It can be:

• lawyers;
• call groups;
• visiting groups;
• bank anti-fraud department;
• other departments specified in the bank regulations.

Borrower data analysis:

• looks at the amount of debt and loan payments;
• place of residence of the borrower;
• place of work;
• the presence of relatives or colleagues who could apply for a loan from the debtor’s bank, PREVIOUSLY, is visible.

Collector's call to the debtor

1. The first phone number that is called is the home one. If the borrower picks up the phone, they first check their passport details, place of work, and actual address of residence. Then they move on to talking directly about debt. The person has been found and contact has been established.
2. If relatives answer the phone, the borrower’s location and contact numbers are specified and information is left with a request to contact the bank or collection agency. If the person calls back, then the search for the debtor is over. Next, the conversation is about repaying the debt.
3. If the home phone does not answer, then the mobile phone rings. The borrower responded, personal information is checked, and the conversation moves on to the debt. The cell phone is turned off or does not answer, the call is rescheduled for another time.
4. The last call is made to work. It is determined whether a person is working or not, when he comes to work, information is transmitted with a request to call back.

Important! Collectors and collection officers of the bank enter the outcome of the negotiations into the program. The next time you call, the entire conversation and all agreements are displayed.

The collector called all contact numbers, at different times of the day and days of the week. The phones turned out to be non-contact.

What happens in this case:

1. Contact persons of the debtor at the home address are established. For example, the borrower is registered with relatives who previously took out a loan from the bank. Their profiles are displayed in the database, along with all the information. All phones are also ringing and finding out where the debtor is.
2. Establish contact persons at the work address. They call their colleagues and find out information. Is the person currently working or not? Where can I find it?

If the debtor can be found, then they move directly to the problem of the debt; if not, then they continue the search.

Neighbours

Using telephone databases, they establish neighbors' home telephone numbers. Call them and install:

• whether the debtor lives at the registered address;
• when he is at home;
• where he works.

Leave contact information.

Important! Neighbors, unlike relatives, do not try to hide information about the debtor and tell everything they know. Often, people cannot stand the calls of collectors to their neighbors and get in touch, and then pay the debt.

The neighbors constantly quarrel with the debtor, put pressure on him, and ask him to pay the debt. If only the calls would stop.

If the debtor's phones are turned off or do not answer, the neighbors confirm that the borrower has been evicted from the apartment and his whereabouts are unknown. Colleagues say that he was fired a long time ago, then the search in this case proceeds as follows:

Many collectors or collection officers are former employees of various government law enforcement agencies.

Through their colleagues, they “break through” the existing police or FSSP databases:

• new address of the debtor;
• home phone;
• make inquiries to the pension fund in order to find out where they work.

Banks and collection agencies often install databases such as Kronus and Sprut.

These programs display all the data per person:

• passport details;
• registration;
• telephones;
• traffic police fines;
• criminal record.

All work is done by the call team employees without leaving their office. If the person could not be found, then the information received is transferred to the work of the field team. Which establishes visual contact with relatives, friends, and colleagues of the debtor.

Visiting group

Travelers determine the distance to the debtor’s intended place of residence, look at the amount of debt and the number of payments. Then they go to the existing addresses, including the work one. Don't forget to visit your neighbors. If a person is found, then their contact numbers are taken and work is carried out to collect the debt.

Important! The results of the departure are entered into the computer. If the amount of debt is small, and the distance to the actual place of residence of the debtor is large (from 150 km to the central office), then departure will not be carried out.

Searching for property is a priority area of ​​recovery. Employees of credit institutions cannot independently enter the home of debtors and take away things they like. ONLY bailiffs have the right to use such methods within the framework of enforcement proceedings.

The bailiffs may also offer the lender to take part of the borrower’s belongings for balance. For example, real estate or a car.

How does this happen:

• the bank sues;
• lawyers receive a court order in their hands;
• send it to the FSSP service at the place of registration of the debtor;
• bailiffs come to the apartment and seize the property located at the address.

You can view the list of things subject to seizure here.

The bailiff can open the defendant’s home, even if there is no one at home and on the basis of Ch. 8 tbsp. 69 FZ-229 to carry out measures to foreclose on property. But this is rarely used and only for large debts.

If the FSSP was unable to find property at the debtor’s place of residence, then the creditor has the right to write an application to search for this property. For example, the bank finds out through its own channels that the borrower has real estate, the transaction of which can be challenged. In such a situation, a petition is written to conduct an inspection of this object. And if the bailiffs reveal the fact that the transaction is insignificant, they will seize the property to pay off the debt.

Search for a debtor in enforcement proceedings

The search for the debtor is not limited to our country. According to the norms of international law, it can be implemented in other states (Article 65, Part 2 of Federal Law No. 229).

In fact, if a person owes a large sum, they will look for him in every way, even abroad, and this often produces results. The collection of other countries, at the request of the Russian side, seizes the property of our compatriots who decided to flee abroad.

Advice! If you have a large debt, there is no need to try to escape, they will find you. It is better to take advantage of the legal right of bankruptcy. After your insolvency is declared, any further actions of creditors will fall under the Criminal Code (extortion).

Bailiffs or creditors, having received a writ of execution, can contact the traffic police with a request to put the pledged car on the wanted list if the debtor is trying to hide it.

From this moment on, the car is on the stop list of all traffic cops in Russia. When her numbers are displayed on the cameras, the Potok system notifies law enforcement officers, who immediately stop the vehicle and take it to the impound lot.

Also, this car cannot be registered.

Important! If you decide to sell a pledged car without the consent of the bank, for example, having received a duplicate PTS, then this is a criminal act (Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation - fraud).

Bottom line

Collectors carry out serious work to identify debtors, but in 80% of cases it is unsuccessful. If a person decides not to pay a debt, then it is very difficult to force him to do so. You can sue banks for years. The actions of the bailiffs are disputed and cancelled.

If you have questions about the topic of the article or require advice, describe your situation in the comments or contact the site’s duty lawyer. We will answer you as soon as possible and will definitely help.

An alarmed reader contacted the editorial office of MK in St. Petersburg: having bought a new SIM card at the office of one of the mobile operators, she received several calls with threats and demands to “repay her debts.”

Journalists found out that our reader is far from alone in her unexpected problem. Today in St. Petersburg, thousands of bona fide mobile phone owners overnight became the target of attacks by collection agencies. How to protect yourself from unexpected consequences that new numbers threaten, and what to do if you are targeted by debt collectors?

Vacation ruined

St. Petersburg resident Galina Lomakina returned from her winter vacation to Sochi in upset feelings. She and her husband did not expect that buying a SIM card at a mobile phone store to call home would result in worries and serious fears for their lives. Immediately after activating the new phone number, it began receiving annoying calls and SMS from debt collectors. The callers very confidently and aggressively demanded that the reader urgently repay debts amounting to a considerable amount of several hundred thousand rubles. But the “debtor” was not Galina, but a certain Victor, who, apparently, borrowed the money. The calls were so regular that the vacation was ruined, and the nightmare ended only when the Lomakins simply canceled this number.

There is no point in admonishing collectors. The only solution to the problem is to change the number, but even here mobile operators do not guarantee that the new SIM card will be without a dubious credit history.

In addition, it is not always possible to cancel a purchased number. After all, it can be “beautiful” or selected with a special combination of numbers. On the other hand, collectors may not appear immediately, but after some time, when your number has already been “inhabited” by friends, colleagues and work partners.

Used number effect

IT experts say that the main reason that this problem arose is the limited “lifetime” of an inactive subscriber - 9–15 months, after which the number returns to circulation. The terms may be shorter if we are talking about sales through dealers.

Another solution to the problem is to simply ignore the collection services and send them to hell. But what to do if the previous owner of the number was an avid debtor and took out loans from several banks and microfinance organizations?! Calls from them can lead to a real nervous breakdown.

There are many forums on the Internet dedicated to the “used license plate effect.” Numerous users complain that the inheritance of borrowers does not allow them to sleep and work peacefully. Often a SIM card with a “dowry” goes to employees of companies for which corporate numbers are purchased.

I connected corporate numbers to Beeline. SIM cards were issued with numbers that had clearly been used previously, the number began with 905, this pool of numbers has been in use for about 10 years, entrepreneur Ilya Korovenkov told Fontanka.ru. - After some time, calls from collectors began to one of the numbers. He always reacted calmly, and there was no rudeness from the collectors. However, my verbal assurances that the number no longer belonged to the previous owner did not work.

Fortunately, the interlocutor managed to fend off the collectors, persuading them to contact the corporate department of Beeline to confirm the change of owner of the number. After that, the night calls stopped. However, this is more a unique case than a rule.

They started calling us from individuals from the Credit Collection Rus company and demanding Tatyana Sergeevna Ivanova to answer the phone. We explained to them a million times that there is no such person, etc., etc., but to no avail,” complains lawyer Alexander Trifonov. - Attempts to contact the Credit Collection Rus company ourselves did not lead to anything, we communicated very correctly and only asked to exclude from the collection file a phone number that has not had the Ivanovs since December 2013. We eventually hear: “There are no seniors now, call back later.”

A banal blacklist, in which you can include an annoying number, does not help either. Collectors have a huge number base - up to 300 numbers, so one contact is replaced by another.

Fight back with little blood

According to lawyers, changing your number is the only effective solution to this problem, since it will allow you to fight off collectors with “little loss.”

Actions involving writing a claim against a telecom operator will not bring the desired results due to the fact that the latter is not responsible for the debts of its clients and cannot influence debt collectors, says Anna Banko, managing partner of the Alfa-Legal law firm. - As for the activities of the collectors themselves, you can simply politely explain the situation to them and send your agreement with the cellular operator to their address.

In an ideal case, Anna Banko believes, you can go to court, but this undertaking will be very labor-intensive, and most importantly, it may not bring any results.

MK-advice

What to do when collectors demand someone else's debt from you

Lawyers advise first of all to determine whether any of your relatives and friends have recently taken out a loan. According to the law, if you are not a guarantor or have not entered into an inheritance where there was someone else's debt, you are not required to repay it! Therefore, you can simply tell the collectors that you have nothing to do with this case and stop all communication with them. True, in reality this can be very difficult to achieve.

Debt collectors may also call you if someone left your phone number with the bank. To fight off this case, you need to get a certificate from this bank about the absence of debts in your name, and then send a copy of the certificate to the collectors.

If you receive a call about debts from the previous owner of your SIM card, then the easiest solution is to change your phone number. As a rule, negotiations with debt collectors do not bring results. Another solution is to send a copy of the agreement with the mobile operator to the collection service. In isolated cases, this brings the desired result - night calls from debt collectors stop.

What usually does a person who is tired of calls from collectors demanding the return of borrowed funds usually do? There are several options for the development of events:

1) he diligently pays off the entire debt and happily forgets about this period of his life;
2) humbly listens to all the threats and insults of the collectors, hoping that somehow everything will resolve itself;
3) writes complaints to the relevant authorities or files a lawsuit;
4) buys a new SIM card and thinks that this will end all the suffering.

However, a short period of time passes and the calls resume with renewed vigor. How do debt collectors find out phone numbers? Why are I receiving SMS messages with threats from debt collectors again on my new number? There are accessible ways for collectors to find out phone numbers and then successfully continue their “dirty” business in relation to the debtor.

Method No. 1. Social networks

Registering and creating an account on social networks is a popular way of communication for people of all ages. This is also one of the sources from where collectors find out debtors’ phone numbers. Sometimes they can create a fake page on one of the social networks, putting a photo of a girl on the avatar and thus find out all the secret information from the debtor himself or from his friends indicated on the page. Therefore, you should be extremely careful when dealing with strangers on the Internet in order to avoid the following question later: “I bought a new SIM card - collectors are calling!” How did they find me? Moreover, there is no law that would prohibit collectors from collecting information in this way. You should protect yourself from such developments by closing your page for visiting strangers and not indicating your real last name and first name in your profile.

Method number 2. New loan from a bank

The debtor, who decided to change his phone number, applied to another bank for a new loan and was refused. But after a while, even though he bought a SIM card, the collectors called. How to explain this? When applying for a new loan, the borrower left his contact information and it somehow leaked to the collectors. Such actions on the part of the bank are regarded as illegal, but it is difficult to prove that the information was obtained from them. Therefore, it is better for the debtor to refrain from trying to get a new loan until the statute of limitations on the first, problematic loan has expired.

Method number 3. IMEI code

This international mobile telephone identifier is assigned to each mobile phone and remains unique. Simply changing the number to an old mobile device will not help, because identifying a person by IMEI is not difficult. Moreover, if the mobile phone was purchased in installments and its IMEI was recorded by the store employees. The borrower stops paying the loan installments, the bank sells the debt to collectors, they find out the IMEI code from the store and use it to calculate the debtor’s new number. Therefore, if the debtor decides to change his phone number, he will also have to change his mobile phone.

Method No. 4. Collecting information from colleagues and neighbors

Collection services sometimes act like detectives. If the debtor is hiding and trying to “cover up” his tracks, they may begin door-to-door visits to neighbors, relatives, or pay visits to the borrower’s place of work. The “bank trace” left behind, in the form of phone numbers of contact third parties when applying for a loan, explains how collectors find out the phone numbers of acquaintances. They, in turn, can indicate to the collectors the current number of the debtor in order to get rid of their calls. If the debtor's friends or acquaintances remain loyal to him, they will not give out any information. But situations are different. Perhaps neighbors or acquaintances harbor some kind of grudge against the debtor and, by disclosing information about him, want to take revenge. Managers or colleagues simply do not want unnecessary problems and will easily open the required information. As a result, the debtor is left with a new SIM card, on which the collectors write SMS messages with threats, as before.

Calls regarding someone else's debt

There are situations when a citizen who does not owe the bank anything complains: “I bought a SIM card - collectors call and demand some money on the loan! What to do?". The new number purchased will not necessarily be “clean”. There are only a few such numbers on the market, and the rest are secondary, which already have a history. Sometimes, in service centers, mobile operators warn about such consequences. A person who finds himself in such a situation needs to contact the bank with a statement that he is the new official owner of the card and has no obligations to the institution. The application must be considered by the bank's special services. If no action has taken place on their part and the calls continue, the victim can safely file a claim based on the provisions of the Law “On the Protection of Consumer Rights” and having previously attached audio, photo and video materials on the case.

All these methods are not the only ones. The possibilities for collectors to collect the necessary information are quite wide and are not always legal.

Some advice for people who find themselves in this situation:

Do not communicate with debt collectors by phone, do not agree to personal meetings, do not respond to emails or SMS messages. If communication does occur, it is necessary to record all conversations or record the meeting on a video camera.
If a person does not owe the bank anything, but they continue to terrorize him with calls, he can safely sue under Article 163 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Extortion”.
You should not pay the entire debt to collectors - all negotiations should be conducted with the bank.
You can use the services of an anti-collector lawyer. As a rule, when collectors find out about this, they abandon the debtor’s case as unpromising.

Being in debt is always unpleasant. Being under constant psychological pressure and nervous tension due to the actions of debt collectors is doubly unpleasant. When neighbors, colleagues, and relatives are added to the debtor/collector relationship and are tired of calls from collectors, they begin to reprimand the debtor about their claims. As a result, the borrower's reputation will be damaged for a very long time. In order not to bring the situation to such an unpleasant ending, you should resolve issues with debts on time and not hide from creditors. We need to conduct an active dialogue with them and together look for a way out of the current situation.

According to the “Debt Free Russia” project, every seventh mobile number in Russia is in the telephone database of a bank or collection agency, since it previously belonged to the debtor. People are accustomed to taking special precautions when purchasing used goods, but almost no one is aware of the risks associated with obtaining a SIM card. Should a mobile operator that did not warn the client about the previous owners of the number bear responsibility for possible consequences? Is it possible to purchase a guaranteed “clean” number? Novaya Gazeta tried to understand the conflict situations arising around these issues.

Saving for the sake of the consumer

The resale of SIM cards with used numbers by mobile operators today is not an exception, but quite an ordinary practice. The “room stock” distributed among operators by Roskomnadzor is very limited. “To meet demand, operators are putting into commercial circulation subscriber numbers released as a result of the termination of contracts for the provision of cellular services,” explains MTS press secretary Dmitry Solodovnikov. By law, this is a perfectly acceptable practice.

All major Russian operators resort to reusing numbers. This is necessary to reduce costs, because companies do not get numbering capacity for free. The operator pays a state fee for each number purchased, as well as for its service in the billing system. “Re-allocating vacated rooms means savings for customers as well. In Russia, prices for mobile communications are among the lowest in the world,” says Yulia Dorukhina, head of the Megafon press service.

All operators have the same scheme, only the timing differs. For example, in Megafon, if a subscriber does not use communication services for more than 90 days, and the balance of his personal account has reached zero, the number can be transferred to another client. “If within two weeks after the number is blocked, the subscriber does not express a desire to return his number, then it may go on sale again,” explains Dorukhina.

According to Beeline rules, after termination of the contract, the number is transferred to a special reserve, where it can remain from 2 to 6 months. It is expected that during this time it will be completely “cleared” of the previous owner. If no calls are received to a number for a certain time, it is allocated to another subscriber. At Tele2, the minimum period that passes between the last use of a number and its resale is one year, at MTS - from six months.

Operators emphasize that the financial motive for selling used rooms is not the only one. “Dead souls” do not allow us to obtain correct information about “living” subscribers who actually use cellular services, and this does not give the operator the opportunity to adjust its product and distorts the general socio-economic data, statistics for which are provided by telecom operators,” explained “ Novaya" in the press service of "Beeline".

It is impossible to purposefully buy a completely new number, even with a strong desire: salon employees do not have access to billing information and, accordingly, cannot say whether a specific phone number ever belonged to another subscriber, Tele2 explained to Novaya. “I contacted the [operator’s] office with a request to replace the SIM card with another one with a free number, to which I was told that they have all the numbers - free and used - in one list, and they cannot sort them,” - A user of one of the legal portals describes her personal experience. Most people never think about this problem: using a used number does not bring them any inconvenience. But less fortunate subscribers sometimes find themselves in rather unpleasant situations.

Loans from “dead souls”

Some of these cases are relatively harmless: for example, the purchased number may be linked to the account of an unknown person on a social network or other online platform, which is why the new subscriber will not be able to register there (“a user with such a number already exists”) or will receive unnecessary notifications. However, sometimes episodes from the biography of former subscribers emerge under much more unpredictable circumstances. Thus, one of the Novaya Gazeta employees was called to the law enforcement agencies: it turned out that the previous owner of the issue had rented out an apartment to a person suspected of committing a serious crime.
But the most common problem is the purchase of someone’s bad credit history along with a SIM card. Children or overly impressionable people can become the target of “telephone attacks,” when up to a dozen calls and SMS messages from a collection agency are received every day. On one of the Runet forums there is a story of a woman who, due to pressure from collectors looking for a completely different person, had a nervous breakdown - for treatment she needed the services of a doctor and expensive medications, all the costs of which she had to bear on her own.

The first step in such a situation is to try to block unwanted calls yourself by adding the number to the “black list”. But collectors usually neutralize this possibility: the numbering capacity of such companies can reach several hundred numbers, which makes manual blocking extremely difficult. Therefore, experts advise calling debt collectors and trying to explain the situation, and if they use threats or other illegal methods, immediately write a complaint to the prosecutor’s office.

“The actions here are clear: contact the structure that carries out the collection - the lender, the collection service, the bailiffs,” says Viktor Klimov, head of the ONF project “For Borrowers’ Rights”. - And then - explain and show. This is not always easy; the procedure requires some effort. But, as a rule, the problem can be solved.” One resource that can help in this matter is the professional association of collection agencies NAPCA. According to association statistics, more than 40% of complaints are due to the fact that debt collectors harass people who are not involved in the debt.

In the best case, the problem can be resolved over the phone or by sending the company a copy of the subscriber registration form, which telecom operators can provide. At worst, they will ignore the request and continue calling. “It seems that it is not profitable for collectors to call random people if they really want to get their money back,” says Klimov. “But in reality it turns out that it’s easier for them to put the number on auto-dial rather than to figure it out.” This is partly due to the fact that citizens avoiding debt collectors often resort to a variety of methods.”

Trading in bad reputation

Experts believe that the scale of the problem is not so great as to further regulate the activities of mobile operators, forcing them to sell only unique numbers or take special certificates from subscribers. “We shouldn’t blame the operators, since they have purchased pools of numbering capacity, and they use them,” says Oleg Shaburov, head of the information security department at Softline. “In reality, the percentage of such “ugly” situations is minimal, and refusing to use all numbers that have already been used once is definitely not an option.” It is best to change your phone number, choosing options with “fresh” prefixes, says Shaburov. The Big Four operators told Novaya Gazeta that in problematic situations they are ready to meet subscribers halfway and make a replacement free of charge.

However, affected customers rightly point out that operators do not ensure the proper quality of their product, selling numbers with a “bad reputation,” and the consumer is forced to bear all responsibility for this.

Lawyer of the Society for the Protection of Consumer Rights Oleg Frolov believes that there are some gaps in the legislation that do not allow people to defend their interests. “You can make a claim against an operator who has not provided the necessary information about the product. And the presence of previous owners is essential information. When purchasing a number, the client must be aware of the possible consequences, as they may adversely affect him.” Today there are practically no appeals to the court on this matter: all that the plaintiff can count on is compensation for moral damage of a couple of thousand rubles.

The head of the ONF project “For the Rights of Borrowers,” Viktor Klimov, says that the problem of collectors calling third parties is much broader than the topic of used phone numbers. “This happens due to an unsuccessful purchase of a used car or apartment, when collectors begin to look for the debtor’s property, or when applying for a loan, when a person is indicated as an acquaintance by former colleagues.” It makes no sense to pass new laws in this regard, the expert believes. Despite the already existing regulatory framework, people still come under severe pressure, and law enforcement agencies are extremely sluggish in dealing with such cases.