Sample of the Book
(This is a sample of Chapter 9)
9
What if the Bill
Collector Calls?
The Collection
Process
...Horror stories about bill collectors are legend. An attorney told the U.S. Senate about a seventy-five year old widow whose husband died, leaving her with unpaid bills. After her husband's death, the widow got a telephone call from a collection agency. The caller told her if she didn't come up with the money for her husband's funeral, he would get a court order to dig up the body and repossess the casket. After the call, the widow required medical treatment...
...Why are bill collectors so rude and abusive? The agencies say they are just being firm, that by the time they are called into the act, the person who owes the bill already has scorned all reasonable efforts to collect. The real reason is that abusive tactics work...
...Telephone threats are a forvorite weapon of the bill collector. So are dunning letters, complete with dire warnings that the consumer will lose his job or his credit rating or will face legal action that will cost him his home or put him in debtor's prison. A reporter from a well respected newspaper, who went to work for a collection agency as part of an investigation, reported that collectors frequently misrepresented themselves as lawyers, policemen, bailiffs, even Social Security Officers. Phony legal notices and letters on lawyers' stationery were common...
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