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While it might be apocryphal, one of the great figures in America, Davy Crockett, was known for saying “Be always sure you're right, then go ahead.” That's a maxim that would have meant some major cost savings for one debt collector, whose repeated calls to the wrong phone number meant a six-figure judgment in favor of a pastor in Largo, Florida, according to reports from WFTS in Tampa Bay.

Pastor Myra, of Largo, received a judgment valued at $363,500 from Florida's Middle District Court, a move that represented a record-breaker at last report. The pastor had never taken out a student loan, nor co-signed for anyone who had, yet found herself running afoul of Navient, one of the largest student loan bill collectors in the United States.

The pastor accused the company of using robo-dialing methods to repeatedly call her cell phone, reaching a combined total of over 700 such incidents. Given that each call—based on a projection from Pastor Myra's attorney—means $1,500 per call in some of the cases, the combined total could have been enormous. Indeed, at last report, the $363,500 may not be the only bill going to Navient; a separate trial is set to begin next month to determine if still more damages are called for.

Earlier reports suggest that Pastor Myra received as many as 11 calls per day from the bill collector, who was reportedly going after Pastor Myra's daughter instead. The lawsuit suggested that Navient pulled Pastor Myra's name from church documents from 1999 and used that as a point of pursuit. Since the Telephone Consumer Protection Act protects consumers from robocalls on a cell phone, that opened up the path to the suit in question.

This is where Davy Crockett's potentially apocryphal motto comes into play for anyone using the phone for business: be always sure you're right—don't target a cell phone for robocalls, especially when the cell phone in question doesn't even belong to the right target—and then go ahead. By following such a simple maxim, businesses can avoid six-figure judgments against them while trying to pursue a share of student loan debt. The consequences for failure can be costly, and the matter is only made worse when all the circumstances are clear. Calling anyone 11 times a day, every day, for several days can not only be a costly matter itself—especially if long-distance charges are involved—but it certainly won't endear any potential clients down the line. It damages reputation, and leaves public opinion firmly against the caller.

Navient has already been hit once with the consequences of such acts, and it may well have to face down more in the future when the other trial hits. So in the end, take Crockett's advice, and make sure the right calls are made the right way before making the calls.