I work in internal collections, or rather... original credit collections. Let me explain my job a little and then I can give you some tips: I work about 30 hours a week on top of 15 hours of school. I usually work five shifts of six hours. Six hours of telling people to get their checkbooks and getting yelled at. Here are some of my personal opinions I have for people who I call on: A lof of people lose jobs, get sick, have family problems, and other legitamate problems which prevent them from making payments on their credit card. A lot of people are too lazy to work, would rather sit at home watching T.V., lie about problems with their life, and do not have legitamate problems. I hate it when people train their kids to lie on the phone... "Hi, this is John, is Jane home?" ... the child moves the phone away from his face and says "Mommy, it's John, I think it is a bill collector." You then hear the mom say "Let's play our game then, remember how to play?" ... kid gets back on the phone. "My mom isn't here. Either is my dad." .. I say "Oh, well I need to speak to your mom, I heard you talking to her." ... "That was my babysitter." Then the kid or mother hangs up. Oh, I don't like it when people hang up. I mean... deal with your problems! I am very kind with a person who explains why they can't pay me $20 over the phone to protect their credit report. But when people are like "Don't call me again you little pr*ck. You can't get blood from a stone, yada yada" ... Then I throw out credit bureau remarks and will close their account which is also reported. Yes, I close accounts because people are unwilling to work with me (cussing at me, etc), which shows as Closed by creditor or closed by bank, not good on report. I also don't like it when people tell ME what they want. A guy will have a $13,000 balance that he owes the bank and he wants me to credit his fees back, lower his interest, etc. This isn't Burger King, you don't get it your way. Collections is the one place of business where the customer is always wrong. Anyway, I'm a successful collector and I simply treat my debtors the same way they treat me. I always start off very kind but the second they want to degrade me, insult me, or blow off the money they owe me, I become aggressive.
wow, brutally honest, nice. unfortunately, I've never had a collector start out nice, normally they go into auto-a-hole mode. so, if you are one of those (nice from the start), I hope you get one of my accounts some day. =]
Yes that is indeed a troll. Look, collectors are not nice people. Their commission and job is all a result of how well/how much $$$ they collect. A collector, or any mature person for that matter, should not take rudeness or name calling over the phone seriously. And lastly, any collector that intentionally slams someone's credit report is an idiot. How would the collector like it if he/she walked into my doctor's office and I decided not to run a test because I didn't like their attitude? We all have bad days. Mine happen when the @$$holes from collections call !!!
Now, I tried to be nice to you before but... "Collections is the one business where the customer is always wrong"???? You need to back up, take a breath and relax. I honestly appreciate your position - you're trying to do a job and help your company/employer. But you have to remember that 1 deadbeat does not exemplify your customer base. In a perfect world, people would pay every single bill on time, every single month, every single year. And Creditors would post payments the day they were received, honor extensions, allow the average consumer enough time to check their statement and get the payment in the mail. We forget, as Americans, that while we're Creditors (in any business relationship) we're also consumers. Once you walk thru the doors to go to work, do you forget that people, like You, take vacations, have illnesses, lose paperwork, forget to pay a bill because we were in an auto accident, have to wait for that check from a new job, ad infinitum? Just because we're at a desk, in front of a computer, is no reason to forget that once we walk away from that desk WE become "Joe Consumer" to somebody else that wants our money. And have you looked at the interest rates Your employer charges Your customers? Maybe the reason they can't make a full payment every month started on the Creditor's side. Have you talked to your supervisor and been enlightened about sub-prime lending and % rate hikes? Can you Honestly explain that to a customer and still feel that Corporate Pride?
CCollector, First, welcome to the board. I truly hope you are here to do what you said, which is share information. Second, the first two jobs I landed after graduating from college were with top ten credit card issuers, so I know first-hand how aggressive collectors can be. They're your opinions and you are certainly entitiled to them, but I think you are a little off base. Very few of the people who get credit cards are too lazy to work. They can't pay the bill because of financial trouble caused by illness, layoff, divorce, or sometimes, financial irresponsibility. Of course they hang up when the get collection calls. It's not because they want to avoid problems, it's because they can't pay. Imagine how frustrating and humiliating it is to know you can barely take care of the basics, then, on top of that, they get 5 or 6 collection calls per day. Multiply that by the 3 or 4 other companies calling them, and it's pretty easy to see why they get overwhelmed and lie to you or just hang up. I always felt that collectors and the companies would be better served if they looked at the big picture: financial trouble is usually temporary. When people get back on their feet, who will they be willing to pay and possibly do business with again: the company that throws out credit bureau remarks and closes the account, or the company that makes every effort to treat their customers like human beings. These are the same people who will need auto loans and mortgages one day. They would be much more inclined to take their business to a company that treats everyone with respect vs a company that treats people like the scum of the earth because they've fallen on hard times.
Never bait a sick troll. Not a healthy idea. Let them crawl back into their sick lives, they are all sociopaths, you know.
You guys are harsh. Why not step back and see what happens, let someone hang themselves w/ their own rope before you jump all over them? There's a 50/50 chance that this person is on the up and up, but you won't find out jumping all over them before they even get a chance to speak. If they are not who they say they are, it will come out sooner or later. This is a public forum which means we all have the right to post here. When you start your own message board, you will then have the right to decide who can and cannot post there. But until then, why don't we try to act like grown ups and give someone a chance before we collectively hang them? I realize this board has had a lot of troll problems in the recent past, but geez.
Since when have you become the board monitor? I, madam, am extremely "grown up". I have been around long enough and know what I am saying. If PBM wants me off, so be it. You will not dictate to ME. Fin H
Of course, I realize that people are going to post a negative reaction to my post. I totally understand that people have terrible situations that happen to them and it creates problems with paying bills. And as long as they are honest with me and themselves, nothing will ever go wrong. My favorite quote: The Truth will set you free. The people I dislike to talk to are ones who simply cuss, hang up, insult me, etc. I know they are only angry at their situation, not me. It just angers me when people lie. When I ask simple, honest questions, many people lie. Hi, I need to talk to Bob, is he there? No, this is his roommate, I'll take a message. Ok, what is your name? B-b.. brian. It happens allll the time. However, I do thank the people who gave me a little support. I'm not sure what all this "troll" stuff is, so if someone could please explain. I posted this message so members could see the positives and negatives of working as a collector. I would say that 75% of my calls are completely customer satisfactory--no yelling, cussing, insulting, hanging up, etc. Like any job, I do what I have to do when I am at work... and I do my best because it gives me a bonus. I am on a very tight budget as it is @ age 19, so anything helps. I do not think there is a better job for my age than where I am at now.
I think the people that are attacking this person who hasn't completly said anything wrong (ok except that part about the consumer always being wrong) are not nice people. Does that make it so? I don't see the need to be vicious over a couple of harmless posts. If you guys must be vicious, wait till he says something worth being vicious over. Tracy, I'm with you.
And if some people are getting upset over the "customer is always wrong" and Burger King thing, I only used to mention the mentality of some collectors. I never ever use those quotes on customers and I don't strictly believe in them. Like I said before, bad things happen to good people and they can't afford to eat, much less pay a minumum due on a CC. I understand that.
CCollector, when I was your age I was doing the same thing. Hell, a job is a job and you do what you need to do to get paid. It paid me more than selling McDonald's and, like you said, I was also never rude with anyone (heck I was in the same situation as some of these people and could relate) and yes, I got the hang-ups and the cussing and all I'd have to say was where I was calling from. Personally, if someone told me they couldn't send a payment out until next week I was fine with that... why? BECAUSE the people who were trying were really trying and the people that didn't care and lied would eventually have their accounts closed anyway and be charged-off and there wa nothing I would say to change that. Ok, so maybe that didn't make me a very successful collector, but I was in school for accounting anyway and this was paying the bills for the time being. ANYWAY, Welcome to the board!
I guess I'm a "Troll" too. Guys, CCollector is trying to explain REALITY to some of you. Now, having worked next to a collection department for a different lender, I would say that CCollector seems to be the exception, not the rule. I had ONE collector call me because I was overlimit by $100 on a credit card. I was nice, and so was she. I took care of it that day (it happened to be pay day too!) Reality is, you are in DEBT. When in debt, you must meet the minimum requirements of keeping your debt in good standing (i.e. send in your minimum payment on time when due.) If you anticipate cashflow difficulties, call your creditors in ADVANCE to work something out. Maybe you should then enroll in some type of Credit insurance to be sure that the minimum payment is paid every month. If you are PROACTIVE about your situation and talk to your creditors FIRST, things may go much better for you in the future. CCollector, thank you for sharing your insight on the inside. We "insiders" need to stick together to help people see the reality of the credit world - positive and negative. We're not here to change anything, but offer helpful advice and feedback where our insight may be helpful.
So TracyB, realizing that should make you understand how some people will not act kindly to someone coming on the board and saying they are a collector and this is what's wrong with consumers. And CCollector apparently understands this also and I commend him for revealing himself to us so that we, in fact, MAY pick up some helpful tips. But don't be surprised if you're attacked in your solid defense of him either. Time will tell if he's true or if he's here to cause a disturbance.
Fair enough. I just think people deserve a chance, that's all. I wasn't trying to get on my soap box or anything, but I think you gotta let the guy open his mouth before you start stoning him. I fully expect to get flamed, and that's ok. Whether he was a collector or not, I'd feel the same way. Sometimes people are just too quick to judge!
While this might not pertain to this poster, the Collection Industry, inside & outside loves to hire younger people, for obvious reasons. They are more aggressive, need money, have a "don't care" attitude, and have the ABILITY to wreak havoc on someones life, in short it's a POWER TRIP for the majority of this group. Not to mention the fact that the way the commission structure works in this business, all lead to a disturbing trend.
