Well, Monty, it didn't take long for the voice of your listeners to speak up expressing their pain and sorrow. Sorry, but this doesn't sound like a person that's [to borrow your expression last week] "having fun getting a collection agent working for them."

Ray

i am speaking for myself here... i am a single mom.. and my first priority is to keep a roof over our heads. food in the cupboards. and clothes on our back.... and i was told to basically to drop everything and pay them.. i am sorry but i can not do that. i will pay what i can afford and they didnt like it because it wasnt the amount they wanted. i am not going to back down and make a verbal agreement with them to pay more than i can afford and have them hold that against me. the agent i spoke with was basically telling me to beg borrow and steal for the money i owe. i am not going to go to family for help.. for the simple reasoning is that it is my fault that the bill is there in the first place so why should my family pay for something they didnt do...

Sorry, Monty, I gotta disagree with you on this one. The reason that most guys don't pay their bills is simply becauuse they can't, not because they don't want to or forgot. People are becoming stretched to the limit by the new economic dynamic that's shaping our society - the polarization of incomes. Forbes came out with a list of the world's richest men this week. Two huge surprises: I didn't see you on it and there's almost as many billionaires in India as the United States. Here's an excerpt from my Feb.13 post on the subject of the "new working poor" when I was duking it out with Milo Bloom the ( iQor, Inc formerly CBCL - Canadian Bonded Credit Limited - Now Iqor Collection Agency ?) collector.

.....It's a big stretch to think that chasing down some guy's who's just lost his job, some single mom who's trying to live on 10 or 12 dollars an hour and support her kids, some guy who's been in a car accident (like the guy who lost both of his legs last week on the front page of the Toronto star and trying to live on the statutory $300.00 a week), some guy who's gotten cancer and struggling to pay for his drugs because he didn't have a group insurance plan, some senior who couldn't keep up the payments on their motorized wheel chair and it wasn't all covered by insurance, or phoning some girl 3000 times because she didn't pay for her CD's. as being a "real job. Maybe in the "Twighlight Zone" Milo.

TCR claims they are performing a valuable service keeping interest rates down and getting irresponsible people to pay up. When one crunches the numbers of defaults versus prevalent interest rates along with the 7 figure Christmas bonuses that lender CEO's receive, it becomes readily apparent that this is simply one more ruse of image manipulation, viz, the belief that the vast number of people targeted by collection agencies are just scamming the system and driving exotic cars while bouncing checks.

Because of the increasing polarization of income we have an escalating number of people who are the "working poor." The constant increase in our aggregate wealth and national GDP has created the ever increasing need for food banks in our country. Why this paradox? (And no Milo, I'm not asking you.) Every week, the Toronto Star has been running an excellent series exposition of this new dynamic that's shaping our society. In opposition, the editorial in the Toronto Sun yesterday castigated those advocating a raise in the minimum wage from 8 dollars to 10 dollars an hour. Businesses will go broke, shut down from the increased cost of labour, they lamented. This prototypical shtick by the rich and their mouthpieces has been going on since time immemorial to justify their receiving an inordinate proportion of the pie. Similarly, the banks can't afford to give their hoplessly multi-tasked tellers an extra dollar an hour. No they can't because their CEO has to get a $20,000,000 Christmas bonus. Home Depot can't give their employees an extra .50 an hour because they have to give the CEO a $210,000,000 severance package. Sanctus Simplicitas.

In Calgary, they have a boom but they can't get people to work in restaurants or Tim Horton's for 10 or 12 bucks an hour because that's not a living wage for the goods and services available in that economy. The restaurant business hasn't waned because the minimum wage was too high; in fact, it was too low to attract the necessary workers. The workers making disproportionate renumeration at the upper end of the spectrum were pushing up the costs of good and services so much that the pay of those at the lower end would no longer suffice for basic costs of living. And yet no one complains when senior banking staff get an extra 10 or 20 percent a year, but when it comes time to pay their tellers, banks claim they can't even afford to keep their wages on pace with the cost of living.

And so this polarization of income in society isn't due to the lack of aggregate wealth; it has to do with the dynamics of how that wealth is distributed. That's why we have an ever increasing class of working poor who are stretched to pay for basic goods and services. Living from paycheck to paycheck, it doesn't take much to push them over the edge. That's why outfits like Total Credit Recovery's Five Star Mortgage operated by George Krieser and Deanna Natale became so successful as parasites on the backs of debtors who were already stretched to their limits. Whenever bleeding starts the black flies and mosquitoes always show up. So do the collection agencies.

Ray

Hey laura...

BTW... way to go for standing you ground with the collection agency.

People need to stay in control of their situation with collection agencies.

Getting control is a main issue here.

Hey laura kerr,

In my opinion, there are 4 reasons why people don't pay their bills on time.
1) there is enough cash available, but the person genuinely forgets
2) There is enough cash available, but the person is negligent
3) There isn't enough cash available and the person is willing to pay promptly when they get the money
4) There isn't enough cash available, and the person is negligent. They won't pay even when they get some money.

The purpose of a collection agent is supposed to be like a reminder service. A reminder service with teeth :)

If there is cash available and the person genuinely forgot to pay, these people simply will need a nudge to remind them that they need to pay their bill. My belief is that these people are horrified to realize that they missed a payment because they forgot.

If there is cash available and the person is negligent, the collection agency should use some teeth to collect the money. Negligent people generally don't care. The creditor needs some help to collect this debt.

If there is no cash/ not enough cash available to pay the bill, and the person is willing to make payments, the collection agent should respectfully help the person make payment arrangements.

If there is no cash and the person is going to be negligent anyways, I believe that the collection agents should use what ever means possible to collect the debt.

The problem is that the collection agent many times treats all people like dead beats. They don't discern between who are willing / non willing players.

And... quite frankly, sometimes they can't tell if people are lying about their finances. IE... you claim you're broke, however you have enough money to pay for beer and cigarettes...

1. Yes, they are allowed to rile you up
2 .Yes, they are allowed to diss you
3. Yes, they are allowed threaten you.
4. Yes, they are allowed to harass you and make your life miserable.
5. Yes, they are allowed to use obscene language to you.
6. Yes, they are allowed to lie to you and trick you (as you can see from Julie Ashton's posts yesterday).
7. Yes, they are allowed to intimidate you.
8. Yes, they are allowed to apply any other "psychological tenderizing" technique they feel like to get the money out of you.
9. No, they never lose their collector's license for doing these things.
10.Yes, they do these things precisely because you let them.


What I'm proposing is a standard way to complain about these problems. The regulators don't hear enough about the problems that you 've mentioned above.

Once they can start to see patterns in what the collection agencies are doing, they can better help the consumer. The consumer has to complain about each instance.

If the consumer doesn't complain, the regulators won't create their data on the collection agencies offences.

The squeaky wheel gets the regulations!!

and they hate it when you stand your ground with them. and dont back down to them.. they hate it big time.. i had a run in with them today and i stood my ground.. caught them in lies and them contridicting themselves.. but stood my ground... it is kind of funny

To answer your questions in no particular order.

1. Yes, they are allowed to rile you up
2 .Yes, they are allowed to diss you
3. Yes, they are allowed threaten you.
4. Yes, they are allowed to harass you and make your life miserable.
5. Yes, they are allowed to use obscene language to you.
6. Yes, they are allowed to lie to you and trick you (as you can see from Julie Ashton's posts yesterday).
7. Yes, they are allowed to intimidate you.
8. Yes, they are allowed to apply any other "psychological tenderizing" technique they feel like to get the money out of you.
9. No, they never lose their collector's license for doing these things.
10.Yes, they are allowed to do these things precisely because you let them.

There is a way out. See my previous 67 posts for details.

tell me something... are the collection agents allowed to laugh and diss a client? and rile them up as well?? i dont think so... but that is how they treat their clients and they want to be paid or make payment plans?? do tell when they talk to clients like that how are the clients supposed to agree to any payment plan being treated like that??? Please answer me that.