help restore my faith in humanity

[deadbeatriot]

so for the last six months i have been collecting debt over the phone.

i promise i'm not some scumbag that tries to trick people into paying. i'm just trying to get what people agreed they would pay. right? that's what happens when you sign a contract, right? you print your name here, sign here, it shows you understand what happens vis-a-vis interest and late payments and all that. right?


right?

now, a lot of the people i talk to, especially in the current economic climate, have very legitimate reasons for falling behind and believe it or not we do the best we can to help them out, either with payment relief programs or fee waivers or whatever. but there's always that fucking guy...

long story short, these past six months i have come up against every conceivable variety of scumbag. here a just a few:

- the guy who makes up his own fucking rules, which invariably make no sense: "you can't call a cell phone!" "why are you calling when i'm eating dinner?" (why the fuck are you eating dinner and 4 in the afternoon, shithead?) etc.

- the guy who thinks insurance is magic and covers everything always no matter what

- the guy who refuses to believe that his apr should be more than 10% despite having been in collections 15 times

-the guy who hangs up immediately after you ask for someone repeatedly and then gets mad when we call them back a week later and he screams "WRONG FUCKING NUMBER!" because we were supposed to know that telepathically, i guess.

- and my personal favorite, the guy who went to the emergency room because he had a fucking stroke, and now refuses to pay $10 a month towards his balance. hey, thanks for saving my life! go fuck yourself!



let me believe that people are good again. or even sort of ok. i'm losing my fucking SHIT, guys.



tl;dr: remind me that people aren't complete, utter sacks of shit.

[Big Mon]

Well thank goodness you haven't yet called me But-would that I could, I'd wave my hand over your soul,and as if by magic, restore thy faith. But Man is a dull, base creature. I was telling someone yesterday that I fight a losing battle every day-one I will never win: the war on dickishness. The stroke victim sounds like my dad,btw

[jfrey]

This doesn't apply to debt collection at all, but just to humanity in general. Something I read recently:

'But we were born of risen apes, not fallen angels, and the apes were armed killers besides. And so what shall we wonder at? Our murders and massacres and missiles, and our irreconcilable regiments? Or our treaties whatever they may be worth; our symphonies however seldom they may be played; our peaceful acres, however frequently they may be converted into battlefields; our dreams however rarely they may be accomplished. The miracle of man is not how far he has sunk but how magnificently he has risen. We are known among the stars by our poems, not our corpses.'

[Astricii]

so for the last six months i have been collecting debt over the phone.

i promise i'm not some scumbag that tries to trick people into paying. i'm just trying to get what people agreed they would pay. right? that's what happens when you sign a contract, right? you print your name here, sign here, it shows you understand what happens vis-a-vis interest and late payments and all that. right?


right?

now, a lot of the people i talk to, especially in the current economic climate, have very legitimate reasons for falling behind and believe it or not we do the best we can to help them out, either with payment relief programs or fee waivers or whatever. but there's always that fucking guy...

long story short, these past six months i have come up against every conceivable variety of scumbag. here a just a few:

- the guy who makes up his own fucking rules, which invariably make no sense: "you can't call a cell phone!" "why are you calling when i'm eating dinner?" (why the fuck are you eating dinner and 4 in the afternoon, shithead?) etc.

- the guy who thinks insurance is magic and covers everything always no matter what

- the guy who refuses to believe that his apr should be more than 10% despite having been in collections 15 times

-the guy who hangs up immediately after you ask for someone repeatedly and then gets mad when we call them back a week later and he screams "WRONG FUCKING NUMBER!" because we were supposed to know that telepathically, i guess.

- and my personal favorite, the guy who went to the emergency room because he had a fucking stroke, and now refuses to pay $10 a month towards his balance. hey, thanks for saving my life! go fuck yourself!



let me believe that people are good again. or even sort of ok. i'm losing my fucking SHIT, guys.



tl;dr: remind me that people aren't complete, utter sacks of shit.

My GF is in the same boat she does phone support for Nordstrom. she has to deal with entitled rich people and of course poor poseurs that can't keep up with their consumerist debt addiction.

You won't belive how many times she has callers say "DO you know how much my Husband makes!? I can't believe I'm being treated this way"... (if your husband is so rich why haven't you paid your bill in two months)

The best, and this has been used multiple times, is when someone say they shouldn't have a late fee because they couldn't pay their bill... Okay, we'll bite why couldn't you pay your bill? ... I was on VACATION. What THE FUCK?


Then of course she's on the opposite side of the issue because she had a kidney infection when she was younger and the hospital refused to accept a payment plan. took her to collections ruined her credit and has since returned any partial payment checks she's tried sending them. FUCK YOU AMERICAN HEALTHCARE SYSTEM.

[bigchiefbc]

I'm sure you're perfectly courteous to people and do your job in a non-dickish way, but I have had some absolutely horrific experiences with collection agents in the last couple years. Not even for my own debt. The phone number that my wife and I got when we moved into our house apparently belonged to someone who owed a SHIT-ton of debt. We get calls for this person about 3-5 times a week. Every time they call, we tell them that the person they are looking for doesn't live here, and that this is not her number anymore. I was perfectly courteous for the first year or so. Now I have just fucking HAD it. They keep calling, and KEEP CALLING and KEEP FUCKING CALLING. I now try to get the name of what agency they work for (if they'll even give it to me. Half the time, they just hang up without answering me). I then threaten them with all manner of things if they call again (calling the BBB, filing a criminal complaint for harassment, suing them, etc.) I've had several of them argue with me that they didn't believe me, and that they thought that I was just covering for this person or lying to avoid paying a debt. This whole process makes me question humanity just as much as your experience does for you. We are at the point now where we're about to give up and cancel our phone number.

[jfrey]

Almost the same thing happened to me. For a whole year collection agencies were calling me 3 times a day, every day, asking for someone named Mike.

[Big Mon]

Yeah,similar instance for me. My ex-wife owed a hospital some money when she and I were married. I had paid off a previous medical bill of hers, which led the collection agency to believe that I was the one hospitalized. Their receptionist was the mother of all cunts,very condescending and curt/snappy. When the motherfuckers finally realized that my ex was the one they wanted and not me,they gave me a half-hearted apology. This only pissed me off, so I prank-called their stupid asses for like,a month straight (yeah,real mature,I know). When collections calls my phone,I simply don't answer

[Chaosmic]

This doesn't apply to debt collection at all, but just to humanity in general. Something I read recently:

'But we were born of risen apes, not fallen angels, and the apes were armed killers besides. And so what shall we wonder at? Our murders and massacres and missiles, and our irreconcilable regiments? Or our treaties whatever they may be worth; our symphonies however seldom they may be played; our peaceful acres, however frequently they may be converted into battlefields; our dreams however rarely they may be accomplished. The miracle of man is not how far he has sunk but how magnificently he has risen. We are known among the stars by our poems, not our corpses.'

THAT is an awesome quote. Sounds like something Howard Bloom would write.

[plhogan]

Wait why is a debt collector here trying to make us feel sorry for him?

I totally believe you're one of the good ones Deadbeatriot, but keep in mind that 99% of the guys who do your job are the lowest pieces of shit in the universe. And it's not as simple as "people should pay their bills", there are so many reasons why things go to collections and they're usually not super kosher.

Basically, if you want to deal with better people, get a job where you don't have to interact with anyone.

[snipelfritz]

Wait why is a debt collector here trying to make us feel sorry for him?

I totally believe you're one of the good ones Deadbeatriot, but keep in mind that 99% of the guys who do your job are the lowest pieces of shit in the universe.

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, no. You're the dick in this situation. People who get hired in call centers by credit card/debt collection companies have absolutely no stake whatsoever in whether or not the people pay. They're just putting in hours for a pay check. If that makes them "the lowest pieces of shit in the universe" then anyone who works for pay is as well. If I work at McDonalds as a cook, does that make me a money-grubbing ass wipe who wants to give children heart attacks in the fourth grade? No, it makes me someone who's probably underpayed, underappreciated and probably not using my capabilities to their furthest extent.

Go work in a call center for a day. Any kind of call center. I worked at a university one that called alumni. It sucked. I had to ask unemployed people for money for shit like sports and the new business school building. Does that make me an asshole? No, I was just doing my job. There were plenty of people who were well off and had no problem giving a little bit to the school(and one who was a tight-end for the Pittsburgh Steelers, I got a big donation of that one ).

Is it different because they work for a debt collections agency? No. Debt can be a great thing just as long as you pay it back on time. If someone is calling you to remind you of an outstanding balance, how is that shitty of them? Sure, plenty of people have good reasons for not paying back their debt, but some take it for granted. What are the credit card companies supposed to do, just let it go? That's absolutely idiotic. Studies have shown the best way to get money from people(whether donations, sales, or owned) is to directly and explicitly contact them. It's a viable investment to hire people to call their customers to retrieve debts. If anyone is a "piece of shit," it's those lazy ass-hats ringing the bells for the salvation army. I bet each of them only makes enough money in pocket change on their first day to cover the cost of the bell and bucket. There's so much more effective and active ways to get funds no matter what the cause is.

People who do their job are nothing more than that: People who do their job. The job itself and who it is for is irrelevant(assuming everything here is legal). Personnally, I think it's so incredibly low and baseless to attack someone personally for what they do on someone else's time(aka for a paycheck). Nobody wants to pursue a career in debt collecting, it's usually just a means of making ends meet, and maybe even paying off their own debt.[/diatribe]

[deadbeatriot]

to all of you getting bothered by collectors, when it gets really bad, here's what you can do if it's the same agency calling you over and over again.

when they keep calling for so-and-so, assuming you've already told them that particular debtor is not available at that number, make sure you take down the name of the company (and a callback number if possible) BEFORE telling them it's the wrong number (tell them you're taking a message or something). they are breaking the law every time they call you back after you tell them the person they're looking for no longer lives there.

keep track of when they call you. write down the date and time. or, if you have a lawyer, get them on a 3-way call as soon as the collector calls you. they are required to record most of their phone calls and keep a log of ALL of their phone calls.


and then contact a lawyer and sue them.

most of the time they'll settle out of court. but even if they don't, thanks to the FDCPA, you'll win unless you didn't keep track of who was calling you. don't forget it could be several different collectors. there are people who rack up debt, move away and change their number, and do it all over again, fucking over the next guy to get the number.

of course, you could change your number, which usually costs money, or get a privacy manager that intercepts blocked numbers, but you may not get important calls regarding personal business matters with banks or the like.


hope this helps.

[deadbeatriot]

bigchiefbc: it's also illegal for them to hang up without disclosing their identity. chances are they're the same people who've been calling you if they won't tell you who they are.

[deadbeatriot]

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre27.pdf

relevant sections for anybody who was wondering:

804 (3)

806 (6)

813 (all)

[Gearmond]

well uh...

tom reproduced... so thats p cool.

[jfrey]

It's weird looking at you both in one thread.