A few years ago almost every night when I would go home from work there would be at least one message on my home phone machine. The caller was usually loud, sarcastic and intimidating.It was a man calling from a debt collection firm trying to collect some money. But they had the wrong guy. The person they were seeking had a different first name than mine (David) but our last names were similar – only one letter difference.Sometimes another man would call about the same debt. He was more subdued and lawyerly, although I don’t remember whether he identified himself as an attorney.I ignored the calls. They did leave a number for their subject to call, but I never called it to tell them they were hunting in the wrong direction. I thought maybe they would figure it out sooner or later.I found the calls entertaining, to an extent. I even recorded one of the wilder calls and played it for friends and a couple of co-workers.I couldn’t understand why, if these people really wanted this guy, they didn’t call at night. Or on weekends.It did bother me that the guy they were looking for might have entered my phone number as his on some credit form. I watched my credit card account closely to make sure somebody else wasn’t using it.I got on the Internet and did some research on my own about this company that was calling. They were on the East Coast and there were a number of Web sites with complaints about this firm contacting and harassing the wrong people.Finally the firm did call on a Saturday. I recognized its phone number on my caller ID. I went ahead and answered. It was the lawyerly man.”David?” he asked.”David who?” I responded.”David ___,” he said, adding the person’s last name.”There’s nobody here by that name,” I said.”Boy, you sure sound like him,” he said.”Listen,” I said. “You guys have been calling here every day for several weeks. I am not David. There’s nobody here by that name, and I don’t know anybody by that name.”There was a short silence and then the caller simply said, “OK.” At that point I hung up. Ten minutes later the phone rang again. I saw it was the same phone number as before, but this time I did not answer. The caller didn’t leave a message. That was the last I heard from them.If you’ve had any harsh or interesting experiences with collection agencies, tell me about them. Collection agencies and law firms are necessary, but there also are laws that they have to follow.