street roots
9
May 11, 2012
COLLECT, from page 8
people on the phone, because they thought
their legitimate account was being accessed
by somebody. Then, when he got them on
the phone, he turned that around and
accused them of fraud. “Well, you haven’t
paid. Are you trying to commit credit card
fraud?” And he’d emphasize, “You signed a
legally binding contract,” and by playing up
the legal aspects, he gave this impression he
was connected with law enforcement. This
worked pretty well for him: He graduated
earlier from the training program.
I should have mentioned that the
program was a door-die situation. You had
| j | | J o bring in a certain amount of revenue to
make the cut, which was pretty hard to do.
So it was a lot of pressure on the collectors
to go with lying, because if they didn’t make
¡jF a quota, they weren’t going to keep the job.
R.R.: So you write in the book, “On a day-
to-day level, the job also tested my standards for
reasonable and humane conduct. ” What do
you mean?
s'',
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RW.: You have to picture me sitting
there, surrounded by this, and each day
going into work with these folks. Our
performance every day is posted on a
whiteboard for everybody to see. And here’s
the thing: Outsiders think, “Well, how could
someone do something like that, threaten a
debtor with false threats?” Not that I ever
did. But as a collector, call after call, you’re
dealing with people who really don’t wanna
pay the bill. They haven’t paid it for two or
three years. So you become inured, you get
hardened to people’s excuses. We had an
abbreviation when you type up your notes
on a call: HLS. That’s where someone tells
you, “Uh, my back went out, I’m out of
work, and my wife is sick. The dog died.”
You listen to all that and then you type in
HLS: hard-luck story. So as a collector, it’s
hard to resist the idea that debtors are
trying to run scams on you. And th a t’s how
collectors justify being less than h onest on
the phone and using tricks: It’s in
retaliation. So I was trying to make my
quota, as an employee in good faith,
certainly feeling a pressure to adopt tactics
that would work better than just calling up
and saying, “Hi. Do you feel like paying this
bill? No? OK. Well, we tried. Goodbye.”
Because that doesn’t work.
R.R.: As a reporter, was it hard for you to
turn off your investigative eye toward what you
saw happening?
F.W.: Well, it didn’t really take much
investigative skill to see what was going on
in plain sight. I didn’t have any access to the
decisions that were being made higher up.
But you get a glimmer of that from time to
time, based on the accounts we were sent.
Using investigative skills, tracking people
down: That is helpful if you’re trying to do
debt collection. And I don’t think the job
itself is without merit. If people were doing
it like the industry says, trying to help
people restructure and get out of debt,
that’s not a bad thing.
Unfortunately, the collectors who were
most successful are pretty adept at steering
them (to think) that they need to pay, by
whatever means, and steer (them) toward
another source of debt. Back at the time I
was doing this, you could still get home
loans pretty cheaply, if you had any equity in
a home. And — this was kind of pernicious —
a pretty astute collector would steer people
toward the kind of lender that would give
them some money. And the debtor is happy
because they’ll get this money, and there’ll
be some left over. This lender is happy
‘cause they’re getting their commissions.
And the debtor, that mortgage is going to
blow up down the road. But nobody has to
worry about that until later. So these were
the most successful collectors I saw.
R.R.: /fozc would you define yourself as a
collector?
F.W.: I wasn’t very successful. My whole
experiment was to see if I could succeed [ I
without using the illegal tactics. I would take
it to the limit, be stern, tell them, “Well, this
is a serious matter, and we need to have this
settlement.” And I didn’t quite make the
quota. I mean, I worked hard, made a lot of
calls, but 1 didn’t quite bring in enough to
keep the job. However, they let me graduate
to full collector status because I was close
and showed up every day. So I was not a
good collector.
R.R.: I think I ’d be terrible.
F.W.: (Laughs.) Well, you don’t know until
you try. The financial awards were good. If
you did well, you could get pretty lucrative
bonuses. The top people in the office where
I worked were getting over $10,000 a month
via bonus, and I know this because
everybody in the building knew it. Once a
month we’d all watch the top people get
their bonus checks, and it was a pretty clear
message. The guys beside me, maybe just
out of high school, can’t even afford a car,
are seeing people pulling down over $10,000
a month on top of their salary. That’s like
winning the lottery to them.
That’s the thing. The collections business
is people in the same economic stratum as
the people they’re calling on the phone. A
lot of the collectors had debts themselves
and were feeling financial pressures of their
own. They were squeezed. So it was
surprising to me they would take this
attitude toward people in the same boat.
debt collection themselves. The reason they
don’t is because they don’t want to be
associated with those tactics. So they get a
contractor, and they wash their hands. It’s
preferable for them to outsource, and when
a collector does get into trouble, the card
issuer is insulated from any wrongdoing.
That’s where the regulations come in. The
penalties for violation of the (Fair Debt
Collection Practices Act) haven’t been
raised since they were enacted in 1977.
Meanwhile, we know what’s happened with
the financial world. I was able to establish
pretty firmly that that $1,000 penalty is
really not much of a deterrent. (If a
customer wins a lawsuit showing a debt
collector violated the act, the customer can
receive up to $1,000 in statutory damages,
plus attorney fees, from the collector.) So
there’s no reason not to avail yourself of
harsh tactics, which do work better, because
even if someone complains and they go all
the way to the court - oh, my gosh! - the
penalty is $1,000.
R.R.: Recently the Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau, or CFPB, proposed a rule
to supervise debt collection. Can you talk about
how it would work?
F.W.: In my understanding, when they say
supervise, it means (the CFPB) would have
people on-site. I don’t know if that would
mean on-site permanently or visiting. I’m
hopeful that will clear up a lot of the
practices that we see. However, I’m
reminded of that New Yorker cartoon with
these two suits, one saying to the other,
“Golly, these new regulations will totally
change the way we have to get around
them.” Collectors, they’re pretty good at
getting around the rules that are out there
now.
The supervision will be applied to
collectors with revenue of $10 million. So
the larger collectors would (say), “Well,
we’re not Company ABC. We’re now
Company A and Company B and Company
C, with a different set of ow ners.” So, I’m
waiting to see how that supervision pans
out.
R.R.: I don’t know if you’d be willing to
answer this: Have you had any personal
experience with debt collection?
F.W.: On the other end? Most was
unfounded. I would get calls for people who
had the same number as me, but not that
I’m remembering offhand. I keep no balance
on my credit card. I’m one of those people
who hates being in debt. I think I might
have disputed a phone bill, but I’m not sure
that was with collections.
R.R.: What kind of links exist among credit
card companies and debt collection?
R.R.: This leads to my next question. What
are some simple steps people can take to stop
abusive collection calls?
F.W.: They’re really part of the same
system. Credit card companies could do the
F.W.: They have a lot of rights under the
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Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. And
depending on what state they live in -
Where you are in Seattle, I think they have a
Department of Finance or the Attorney
General’s office has debt collection
regulation. So that adds another layer of
protection. But the main layer of protection
is the FDCPA.
First, it depends on whether you’re sure
the debt is real, or if it’s some guy trying to
get you for money you maybe owed a long
time in the past. In that second case, you’re
in good shape. You can just tell them, “Don’t
call again.” Get an address, follow that up
with a letter and keep a copy of that letter.
Under the law it should turn off the calls.
Similarly, you have a right not be called at
work. This is really important because, from
what I saw, that was a main pressure tactic
that people would use. They’d call people at
work repeatedly, and if you’re sitting there
trying to keep your coworkers and your boss
from hearing this conversation, it puts a lot
of pressure on people. You just tell them, “I
can’t get these calls at work, don’t ever call
here again.” And they shouldn’t do it.
If there is a debt that is owed, and you
think you probably need to pay it, that gets
pretty involved with how many assets you
have. But if it is a debt that someone thinks
they want to pay, they should do a
negotiation. They should keep things in
writing.
One thing to remember is to not opt for
the first offer or bid. Keep in mind that
toward the end of the month in the
collection world is when you’re going to get
the best offers, if you’re trying to settle a
debt.
But abusive calls: I would record them, no
matter what state you’re in. I’ve had this
advice from regulators. Some states have
single- or dual-party consent, where it’s
technically illegal for you to record someone
without their permission. If that makes
s o m e p e o p le u n c o m fo r ta b le , ju s t s a y t o t h e
collector, “Well, I’m going to record this
starting now.” That might have a real
chilling effect on the threats you’re getting.
And if not, they’ll have this recording they
can take to a consumer attorney. It helps a
lot to have evidence of the kind of
threatening behavior that you’re alleging.
R.R.: Last question: Would you ever work as
a debt collector again?
F.W.: Well, you’re not supposed to say
never, right? It sure would be way down on
my choices of things to do. But I’m not
sorry I did it. It was the most interesting job
I (ever) had.
Rosette Royale is the assistant editor at Real
Change News, Street Roots sister paper in
Seattle, Wash. Republished from Real
Change News.
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