I did it. I quit my job as a debt collector. I’m already starting to feel better. I’ve said things to people that have made me cringe while saying them. I took money from people who had to use the money to feed their kids. Why? One of us has to eat. Do I feel horrible about it? Absolutely. So as part of my penance for the people I’ve fucked over, I am here to let the Teeming Millions know what the collection agencies know and you don’t. I know of course no one on the SDMB is in debt (:rolleyes: ), but if you were, this info, while dry, could be very helpful to you. Who knows? Your debt may get erased or the agency may end up paying you!
[Disclaimer: Nothing in this thread should be construed as legal advice. If you need to take or respond to a legal action, talk to a lawyer. The original author of this thread, The Straight Dope®, Cecil Adams, The Chicago Reader®, its staff, and the staff of this message board are not responsible and shall be idemnified and held harmless in the case of legal action.]
Just some basics:
[list=a]
[li]Collection agencies are bound by the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA).[/li][li]All correspondence to a debtor, whether by phone or mail, must be accompanied with the phrase, “This is an attempt to collect a debt. Any information obtained will be used for that purpose. This is a communication from a debt collector.” In the business, we call this the “mini-Miranda”. If the collector calling you doesn’t say it at some point in the call or somewhere on their letter to you, they can be held criminally liable.[/li][li]Collection agencies may not reveal the existence of the debt to anyone except the spouse. Not fianceés, not parents, not live-in girlfriends or boyfriends. Furthermore, in the states of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Alabama, and Iowa, the existence of the debt may not even be revealed to the spouse. However, the agency may discuss the debt with anyone when given prior express permission by the debtor.[/li][li]Collection agencies may not harass or annoy debtors. This means multiple calls in the same day, calls before 8 a.m. and after 9 p.m. (in the debtor’s time zone), and harassing calls to neighbors, relatives, and friends. A collection agency also must cease calls immediately if anyone requests so.[/li][li]The collection agency may not threaten arrest, imprisonment, physical harm, public humiliation, firing from employment, or any action the agency doesn’t plan to take. This means that if they’re never going to sue you or garnish your wages, they can’t ever threaten to sue you or garnish your wages.[/li][li]Threatening language such as cursing or hate speech is a BIG no-no. You, as the debtor, however, are free to unleash verbal hell on them. Ain’t it great? :D[/li][li]As far as I am aware, wage garnishment in the state of Pennsylvania is illegal for commercial debts. If you live in Pennsylvania, you’ll never have to worry about your paycheck being taken. :)[/li][/list]
There is a lot more to the FDCPA, but items B, C, and D are the most common violations I saw when I worked there. If you owe a debt and any of these rules are broken by the collection agency, contact the Federal Trade Commission and file a complaint.
So, what percentage of the debts you collected were as a result either directly or indirectly of a default on health care costs - ie - someone has a massive heart attack, fails to pay their other bills, or the hospital bill, or whatever?
Bravo. I did 6 months as a bill collector, and I still feel bad about some duns I pulled.
Re: item C, I followed that one religiously, but I must admit I did get a bit of a chuckle out of one instance. Where I was collecting, I was within my rights to tell a parent about their child’s debt if the child was under 18. I was collecting traffic tickets and minor police citations.
So this one kid had a $50 debt for underage drinking and when I dunned him, he essentially came back to me with something along the lines of “what the hell are you going to do about it? I don’t have a job, I live with my parents, you can go piss up a rope Mr. Collection Agency Guy.” I politely informed him that according to the law, I could just as easily call his parents and ask that they pay the ticket. And of course, when I did, I’d have to tell them what the ticket was for…!
I have a question. My dad was a doctor, and like many doctors, had people who never fully paid their bills. Now he’s retired and there are still some people out there who haven’t paid. He’s decided that if they still haven’t paid, there must be some reason for it, and so he asked the debt collection agency to just forget about those people. He’s actually asked them several times in writing and over the phone. And yet they still go after them (he knows because he periodically will get a check for some small amount). I understand that the agency probably would rather collect the money since that’s how they get paid, right? But if the debtee asks them to stop, don’t they have to stop? Or is it a once it’s started, it’s not over till it’s over kind of thing?
What if you are an individual attempting to collect a debt from another individual? Do those rules still apply, or is it debt collection agencies only?
You know when you’ve called someone just because they happen to have the same last name as the debtor? And you ask for the debtor and they say they’ve never heard of him in their life? And you say “Sure he’s not an uncle or something?” Does anybody **ever ** say “Oh yeah, you’re right, now I remember”, or do they always just call you a jerk and hang up?
I know it’s a rotten job, but I don’t think you need to get all penitent over having done it. I know that there are many, many reasons why a person would be in big time debt, default on debt and all that but the company/person/agency to whom the person owes money still should expect to get the money. So, working for a dept collection agency shouldn’t be something you need be ashamed of.
Speaking as a credit professional, although commercial credit for the last 15 years, I’m telling you to give yourself a break. It’s easier to collect from companies than individuals, but the philosophy is the same. People owe the debts they accrue. That doesn’t mean you can use unethical tactics to collect them, but face it, most debtors chose to get in debt. They wanted to buy things they couldn’t afford and to buy them on credit. Medical collections excepted, of course. Why shouldn’t they be made to pay them? You took the vacation, now you’ve got to pay for it. You bought the car, you drove it, now you have to pay for it. What’s unfair about that?
After 20 years of absolutely pristine credit history, in 1995/1996 I got myself into some trouble, and have finally (mostly as you’ll see in a moment) gotten back to a pretty decent credit profile (FICO score of 790).
Anyway, recently, for the second time since my troubled period, I’ve been notified that I owe a debt of approximately $1,600 from different collection agencies. They’ve never been able to show me what the balance represents, other than that it’s a credit card from a bank I don’t ever recall dealing with. When I asked the first collection agency to show me something in writing where there was a statement of this account sent to me, they couldn’t, and ultimately they went away. Now we’re having deja vu all over again. I’m still waiting for them to send me some evidence that I actually owe this debt, but meanwhile they are telling me the fact that they have my social security number and it’s on my credit report is enough evidence for them.
Somehow, this doesn’t seem right. How can I prove that I don’t owe something if they can’t prove that I do ?
BTW, as I told the first collection agency, if they actually prove the debt is mine, I’ll pay it, but I’m not going to give anyone $1,600 just because they ask for it.
I actually primarily handled collections on Bank of America accounts (see my rant about BoA here). Healthcare collections were handled in a different department. I asked for a transfer there – since that’s where my work experience is – but was denied. I did have access to their systems, though. I even found a doper there, but I will of course decline to say who.
I absolutely hated calling single moms, young (in their 20’s) families, and the elderly. I had one case where the single parent was also a schoolteacher, so you know she was squeezing every penny just to support herself and her child. It’s even harder when they don’t argue with you; they just respectfully tell you that they can’t afford it. I basically said, “Okay, here’s my number. Call me when you have the funds. Good luck!”
Also, how do you tell a 77-year-old woman with metastasized cancer that she needs to pay her bill? She had about two months to live… I just let her go.
Yes, debt collectors don’t deal with honest people. People definitely do lie about their life situations. But if that 77-year-old woman’s credit report hadn’t listed medical bills out the wahzoo, I wouldn’t have believed her. A person’s FICO (credit) score also says a lot about if they’re telling the truth.
I felt “best” calling businesses and religious “non-profits”. I put that word in quotes because it’s amazing how quickly a preacher will bear false witness when he owes money. Religious evangelist groups were my biggest deadbeats. My favorites, though, were business accounts, because they usually owed a good bit of money and it was pretty impossible for them to plead poverty. Also, sounding official on the phone went a long way with them.
As far as I know, the collection agency would have to cease collection efforts as soon as the creditor (your dad) requested the matter closed. A lot of it would depend on what the contract between your father and the collection agency stated. We never had problems with closing accounts when Bank of America requested them closed.
Private debts between individuals are not governed by law. If your buddy owes you beer money, you don’t need to say, “Hey, let’s go get a beer at McDougal’s. Oh, and by the way, this is an attempt to collect a debt…”
Seriously, the FDCPA only regulates the collection practices of commercial creditors and the collection agencies representing them. So you can still feel free to have Vinny and Vito pay your buddy a little visit.
You’d be surprised. I’ve had calls sound like this:
ME: Excuse me, may I speak to Joe Schmoe please?
DEBTOR: This is he.
ME: Sir, I just wanted to inform you that we have an account here with Bank of America that is overdrawn by $445.95…"
DEBTOR: Oh, you want Joe SCHMOE! No, sorry, this is Joe Blow!
Right.
Ninety percent of people are decent when they’re not the ones owing money. And yes, people do forget that they have a cousin named Joe Schmoe. Their minds are just too preoccupied with sounding like they don’t owe you money, too, and they are praying you don’t look them up in the system.
Merhouse, despite what any collection agency tells you, the burden of proof is on the creditor. You are not legally obligated to prove you don’t owe a debt. They are legally obligated to prove you do. You are legally afforded the right to file dispute with any debt. With most debts, the creditor/collector must respond to you within thirty days with proof (in writing) of the debt. If they cannot prove it within that time frame or they take longer than 30 days to get back to you, the debt is considered unprovable and therefore invalid.
Debt collectors have surprisingly little information to go on when collecting a debt. When I was collecting my Bank of America accounts, the only information I had about the debt was the amount, date we received it in collections, and the date it was charged off as bad debt (and sometimes we didn’t even have that information). We weren’t told why the account was overdrawn, how much was overdrawn versus how much was fees, when it was overdrawn, etc. The biggest tactic collectors use is to never answer a question directly. It sounds to me like your particular agency couldn’t come up with the paperwork to prove your debt, so they’re trying to talk you in circles. Tell them flat-out that you will not pay this until you are holding proof of the debt in your hands. Do not be swayed by any threats you receive in response. They can’t touch you until they prove it.
I would write a little more, Merhouse, but I’m late for dinner at Mom’s. Keep the questions coming, guys!
Merhouse almost the exact thing happened to me. One day, a collection agency called me and told me I owed money from a department store card way back in time that I was 99.9% sure I didn’t owe. The only thing I could think of was that if I didn’t close the account properly and had owed 2 pennies that collected interest. But still, I had never seen any bills. I would never just not open a bill. To this day I don’t know what it was about.
What I did was first I started to just always take the collector’s calls but to tell them that it just wouldn’t be right for me to give them money if it was a mistake so could they please mail me a bill. They kept saying they couldn’t! I also got it taken off my credit reports since I figured if they weren’t going to give me proof they probably wouldn’t give it to equifax or transunion either! Then when the collection agency called again I told them what I did!
I actually yelled at them a fair bit. Like this girl sounded about 17 years old and she’d say, “well Miz Pokey you have 24 hours to pay this or I am going to call you tomorrow with a court date!” and I’d say, “okay call ‘court’ and then call me back and tell me when I have to be there then I guess that’s how it works.” Then somebody else would call the next day and act like they saved me from the one woman legal mastermind and I’d say, “wait I thought we were going to court, aren’t we going?” I asked them what the bill was for one more time and they said that I would have to get that from the original creditor and I asked him if he was going to tell the judge that too. Anyway, my hot tip for them about my defense strategy was that the statute of limitations was long past.
My main thing was that I would pay it if I knew what it was but I finally told them the last time they called that I was sorry but it would be wrong for me to pay a bill I didn’t believe was valid just to make someone stop harassing me, so I would just have to live with their daily phone call and let the voicemail get it. Those are the breaks, I have to follow my conscience. He said he was going to call me every day but he was lying. I don’t think they ever called me again.
Oh, man, did I ever get these things out the wazoo last year after my husband was in the hospital. Not from a collection agency, but from this one doc’s office. Multiple statements saying things like “You owe this amount -> $1,250.33” and so forth. No date of service, no saying what it’s for, just "you owe us moneY’ with threats to send us to collection and offers for payment plans at 23% interest.
I seriously considered setting up a tape recorder with “I am not paying even one cent unless you can tell me what these charges are FOR – and “medical services” is NOT an acceptable answer. You tell me exactly when, where, and what I am being charged or you can go [anatomically impossible sex act]”
If I really owe money I’ll pay it (I was writing four-figure checks for awhile there) but I’ll be damned if I hand it over without proof that I owe it.
First, congratulations for re-claiming your soul from Satan.
Second, I’m in the middle of a hairy situation. I got a letter addressed to Robin [birthname] last week, claiming that I owe Chase Manhattan Bank just over 1,000. I have not used my birthname in a dozen years or so, so that tipped me off that this might be a good thing to pursue. I called the collection agency listed on the letter, and spoke to a woman. The woman told me it didn’t matter that the debt was so old (it had been incurred in 1991 and charged off in 1999); that it could go back on my credit in 2000, which it apparently did; I don’t remember this being on my credit report. I then asked her for proof of this debt, and she told me “It might be a deficiency judgment on a car”, until I told her that not only did I not own a car then, I couldn’t have had one. She then admitted she didn’t know for sure; that Chase Manhattan had the original records, but if I called Chase Manhattan, they’d just send me back to this agency. She tried to make arrangements to get me to pay this off until I cut her off with “I don’t pay bills I don’t owe”. And hung up.
Thursday, I got a phone call from their “legal department”, informing me that they had filed for a judgment on this debt.
My question is, where do I go from here? What rights do I have now that it’s apparently in the legal system?
Yes. The collection agency responsible for your student loan may offer you a program known as a “rehabilitation”. Essentially, you will pay them $50 a month for a year (this may vary from agency to agency). If you make all your rehab payments on time, they will resume your previous payment schedule. If you don’t follow the rehab, however, they can and will garnish your wages (unless you live in PA, of course), repossess your assests, freeze your bank account, and even garnish your IRA and pensions (though I’m not 100% sure on that one). Student loans are no nonsense for a collection agency, since the agency basically buys the debt from the lender.
Yet another tactic done by collection agencies. One of the most important things they teach us is to express the urgency of the debt. Collectors will try to make you feel like you need to pay today “or else.” In truth, most collection accounts will never, ever go to the courtroom. If you owe 120 bucks, it’s just not worth it to take it to court. You’ll float around in their system for half a year, then the collection agency will eventually return the account to the creditor as “uncollectable”, who will then usually just write it off. Yes, it’ll be damaging to your credit, and yes, some things like ChexSystems reporting does happen (like if you owe a debt to the bank, ChexSystems will prevent you from opening new bank accounts and freeze your current ones). But all in all, collection agencies hold very little power over you when you owe small debts.
And pokey, you can tell them not to call you anymore. If they don’t comply, file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission.
Good for you, Broomstick! The collection agency definitely had no clue what you owed for, either. They just saw a twelve hundred-dollar account and would use whatever rhetorical trickery they would have to get in order to get it.
Collectors work on something called “fee”. Fee is the percentage cut the collection agency takes for each account. My accounts were at a paltry 17%, which is very low in the business, but acceptable since they were new accounts. Collectors have a monthly goal to make, and when your goal is $4000 in fee at 17%, you need to collect $23,529.41 in actual dollars. Collections is as rabid, cutthroat, and back-stabbing as sales (maybe even more so).
This sounds like one of my typical calls. Like I said before, collection agencies don’t have much information to go on, though they’ll act like they do.
How many times did the collection agency contact you? Did they ever provide to you proof of the debt in writing? If not, you’ve already won.
Hire a lawyer. He/she will tell you exactly what your rights are. Do not let the word “judgement” scare you. Collection agencies love this word because it makes the debtor feel like he/she’s already lost. On your day in court, simply state that you’ve asked this collection agency multiple times for proof of the debt and they’ve never provided it, which is a violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act of 1977. Tell them the girl you spoke to already admitted she didn’t know what the debt was for (give them her name if possible). Ask them to their face, right there in the courtroom, “What is this debt for?”
It’s true, there’s no statute of limitations for debts owed on a bank account. But you have many, many more rights in the legal system than the collection agency does. If you can’t afford a lawyer, ask your courthouse how to contact pro bono legal advice. You could probably easily represent yourself in the courtroom, but any legal advice you can get may help. Good luck and let me know how it goes.
First, ftr, my FICO score is well above 800. Credit ratings don’t get much better. The only money I owe anyone is my mortgage – which is current, btw.
I just got a call from Capital Management Services and spoke to an asshole named Daryl. (And, oh yeah, I’m naming names on a public message board. You betcher sweet ass.) He asked for Dogzilla Lastname (my name is about as common as Jane Doe). He gave four digits and I said, “what are those numbers?” He says, “are those the last four of your social?” I replied, “Why, no.” Then. And here’s where I get really mad. “Of course you’d say that. Who lives at [some address I never heard of]?”
Finally, he decided he couldn’t prove I was the Dogzilla who owes Sears two grand and claimed he’d take my record off. I simmered about his shitty little comment for a second and then called back and asked to speak to a boss like person. Another chick answered and put me on hold until finally the line cut off. Now, I’m hopping up and down mad.
I’m calling them back and harrassing the shit out of them until I get a name and an address. Then I’m writing a letter and sending it certified mail. Hey, if I owed money, I’d be happy to pay it off. But under no circumstances will I be treated like a common freaking criminal until the asshole on the other end of the line actually verifies I really AM the common criminal they’re looking for. I’m copying the state Attorney General’s office, the FTC and the National Association of Consumer Advocates (who has a web site listing attorneys in my area) as well as Sears, the company who keeps reporting this debt.
See, this is the second time I’ve had this exact same conversation with another rude, condescending asshole. No questions for the OP; I’m just too pissed off for words right now. Thanks for starting this thread; I read it last night, so I happened to be aware of my options on the phone a few minutes ago. This is a valuable public service. THANK YOU.
