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Yesterday on the front page of the New York Times, was an editorial titled “Debt Collectors Try to Put on a Friendlier Face”. I was quite disturbed by that headline and the write-up and wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Times and would like to share it here with you. Please leave your comments and what your thoughts on that scoop are.

Dear Editor,
Your spread written by David Streitfield on March 14, 2008 titled “Debt Collectors Try to Put on a Friendlier Face” is quite insulting to me as a person involved in the debt collection industry for 20 years. Your essay starts out by saying, “Just in date for a recession, the debt collection industry is working to shed its reputation for remorselessly hounding society.” I have spent the last 10 years trying to change the perception of that industry, and I am not alone. Debt collectors haven’t “just started calling the indebted “our customers” rather than “our debtors” as you claim, debtors have always been the customer and the person they owe the money to is the client. This is nothing new that debt collectors have dreamed up just in duration for the recession.

Your write-up helps cement in the public’s eye that bill collectors are poor and evil only out to hound citizens and take their money. Let us remember that the society, who owe the money, OWE THE MONEY. The media should help us to remember that debt collectors are trying to help businesses who have not been paid, to recover the money that is owed to them. Being a bill collector is a hard job, debtors can be extremely impolite to bill collectors who are doing their job, but we never take in about that aspect of that industry.

Bill collectors are hired by business owners when they deliver a service and a consumer does not pay for it, with that negative perception of bill collectors being reinforced in the media, consumer or debtors are being encouraged to look at the bill collector as the poor guy and find a way to get out of paying the money they rightfully owe to the business owner down the street or in your neighborhood. Isn’t that theft of services or stealing? Is that the kind of community we want in the USA? Because business owners choose a collection agency to get paid when they have exhausted their efforts does not construct the bill collector the poor guy, the poor guy is the consumer who bought the products and now won’t pay for them and is trying to find a way to get out of paying for them. Something else that is never pointed out is that whether you are dealing with a debt collector who is breaking the law by not following the FDCPA, who is that bill collector collecting for? Is it a credit card company? A mortgage company? We must look at who the client is, considering in my opinion the debt collection agency that a business chooses to gather for them is a reflection of that business.

Granted, I do know there are bill collectors out there that break the law, but the way bill collectors are grouped together as poor society just trying to “take people’s money from them” as you quoted Ira F. Leibsker as saying is plain wrong. Names aren’t just picked out of the phone book, these citizens ordered a service or a product and received that service or product so the money you are collecting is not even their money, and they owe it to the store owner down the road who needs to get paid for the services he or she provides.

Your spread goes on to say “Collectors are in a jam” but being in that industry I see

the exact opposite. Many business owners are trying to get their Accounts Receivables collected to increase their bottom line considering of the credit crisis and state of our economy. A business owner who prints out their A/R listing and places that with a collection agency is trying to get paid, the messenger of the collection agency is soon after perceived as the evil poor guy for doing their job. considering of the perception of bill collectors in that country and the reinforcement of that perception through our national media, public who owe money are looking for loop holes to get out of paying, and in some cases baiting bill collectors so they can sue them, get out of paying their bill and soon after hoping to get a settlement payment for a violation of the FDCPA.

More and more consumers will owe more and more money as the economy worsens in the coming months and year. Consumers who received “easy credit” couldn’t afford it when they applied for it and credit card companies and mortgage companies approved them and gave them credit. Consumers used those cards, bought things and now can’t pay. Now that the history is placed with a collection agency, they don’t want to pay.

 

It is really quite simple; whether you don’t want to deal with a bill collector don’t buy things you can’t afford.

 

I made debt collection calls for 19 years, I worked as a credit manager for many years and next opened a collection agency that I ran successfully for 8 years, I have written many books and articles on the subject and debt collection is like any other job. We read about and construct out from consumers how nasty debt collectors are, and in my experience debtors can be equally whether not more nasty to the bill collector. Debtors are the most nasty when they actually do owe the money and don’t want to pay and don’t want to be bothered by someone who is calling them to remind them that they are stealing and not fulfilling their obligations. Whether it is considering they lost their job, were approved for credit they could not afford or lost their home. No matter what the circumstances, you still owe the money and need to do something to resolve the matter. When a debt collector calls a business person who owes a debt rather than a consumer, it is the same situation, the shout from the debt collector reminds that consumer or debtor that they are not being honest and reminds them that they are not doing their job. Therefore the debt collector becomes the enemy, sometimes even before the debtor has even spoken to them one moment. It is equivalent to your mother telling you that you can’t do something considering you are punished for doing something wrong, you don’t like the consequences, so mom is the enemy. Which brings me back to “If you don’t want to deal with a bill collector don’t buy things you can’t afford.”

I have been a debtor, I have had collection agencies shout me, I know what it is like and what you have to do, I know how it makes you feel and how you take it out on the messenger. I have had to go to my local church to get food to feed my kids so I could send a bill collector $20 that month. I have had bill collectors yell and swear at me, I have had them talk to me like I am nothing considering I owed that money, of course that is not fair and should not be done, and I have done my best and still am trying to change that. The reality of it is, I still owed that money.

Orginal post by Michelle Dunn