CC here, how is everyone? Felt like posting another collection technique / things that work / don't work. Once again, I work for a large credit card company, internal collections. So when people are between 5 and 150+ days on their account, I call and try to collect on the debt. Do I treat customers differently based on their attitude? Yes. Should I? Probably not... but I'm only human. Do most collectors treat customers differently based on their attitude? Again, yes. If I make a call, some lady answers the phone and yells "F Off" and hangs up, no biggy. But if I make a call, a female verifies she is the owner of the account, then says "F Off" she then has an extremely high chance of me closing her account at the option of the bank. I can't think of a time I've closed a decent, sincere person's account. Moreover, the decent, sincere people will also get a nice offer from me to lower interest / stop fees / etc. When people say "I'm not paying you usurers another damn dime until you lower my interest rate to a decent rate." Doesn't work, sorry. We can temporarilly lower interest rates to a lower rate for a certain number of months, however you will still continue to accrue fees. The only way to permanently reduce the interest rate is to be current for 6 months continually. Oh, but I don't offer bringing the interest down if the customer is an ass. Let's see... oh, when people make their children lie on the phone, it makes me sick. Little children (who almost always seem to answer the phone by saying "WHO IS THIS?!") shouldn't be taught to lie at such an early age. Sometimes they pick up the phone and I'll ask if their mom or dad is there and they will say "Hey, Dad, it's XXXX from XXXX." and I'll hear an adult male voice say "tell em I'm in the shower, or gone, actually, just hang up." Happens all day long. What else.. hmm. Oh, when college kids' parents say "You shouldn't have given them a credit card." I'm always like "Listen, I'm 20 years old, I have a full course load at college, work full time, have a fiance, a puppy, a new car, and lots of bills." Or, the college kids themselves are very funny sometimes. "Dude, I'm in college, I don't have time for a job.. but listen, I graduate in a year and a half, I'm sure I'll get some cash to you by then." I actually had a college guy tell me that the other day... I gave him the same speech. Oh, debt management. Don't do it, but I know all of you are aware of that already. I call people all day long who are screwed up by debt management. "Uhh, I've been paying Ameridebt for 3 months so stop calling me, it's against the rules." ... when we haven't received a payment or proposal in four months. Anyway, those are just a couple of pointers.
OK, you young whippersnapper LOL! In case you don't hear a voice in the background, and you get the buzz that Dad's in the shower us old fogeys tell our kids to tell ANYONE that we are in the shower if we are not home. Other words - "Yes Mister Child Molester/Kidnapper/Burglar, I'm home all alone. Is not a good thing.
Man this CCollector guy is a freaking joke. It's so funny cause I have been trying so hard to talk to the people at Discover to make the repayment terms affordable and I get nothing. Now I just tell them to "F Off" cause they deserve it. Listen, why don't you stop pretending like you actually try to help the customers and realize the facts. Not only is CC lines of credit against banking laws (there is no deposit backing them) but they are nothing more than predatory lending practices. As if CCs make money from the low prime rates, hahahaha.
When a OC calls and wants to know when they are getting their money back it can never hurt to try and negotiate some kind of deal wherein you get better terms, fees waived etc. You should be so sweet the internal CC CA's eardrums will get cavities. You never know when someone who is having a good day may feel sorry for you and help you out. Too many ppl let their emotions take control over them when dealing with debt collection situations. From a CC perspective, it is all business, the consumer is defaulting on the contract and so the CC is going penalties rightly afforded under the contract. From a consumers point of view the whole thing is seen not as business dealings but a personal attack, and the harder the CC tries to enforce the penalties the more the consumer will resist because it plainly and simply pisses them off. The result? Charge off's, collections, and BK's that could have been avoided by a little negotiation. Yes CC are evil. But nobody forces consumers to sign those contracts with the credit card companies.
Why did you post this? I don't see any "tips" for consumers here. I only see someone venting about their job.
Venting? No, it's work. It's not the most fun job, but I'm not complaining at all. Basically what the person said up there -- I am in internal collections, and I am just advising that being rude to the person handling your account is not very wise. Trying to sound like a hard ass / intimidator does nothing except push us to close your account and not make an offer.
Re: Re: Things that work / don't work... CCollector never said they were tips. We call our CCâ??s retention departments all the time, we get our rates lowered, our limits raised; all the while we are calm, cool and in control. All CCollector is trying to tell us is that if we remain calm, cool, level headed and in control of our emotions while our accounts are in trouble the OC could be in a better position to help. What Iâ??m reading is common sense, you get better service with honey not a sh*tty attitude.
