Posted on March 26, 2009 at 11:00 am I've never met a nice collections agent.  The other credit card company customer service reprentatives are very cordial and nice when discussing my accounts until they pull up my file and then abruptly transfer me to a collection agent that doesn't want to hear anything from me except that I am willing to pay 100% of the debt. Some of the phone calls I've endured from collection agents have bordered on abusive.  One collection agent wasn't interested in hearing anything from me and just kept chanting, "And when are you going to pay? What is your bank account number?  Give me your bank account information!" as if she was possessed. She said this at least fifty times, until I just put her on hold and didn't pick up the phone again. It was freaky.  And, at the time, my daughter was in the hospital and I was so scared and upset by the entire experience. I would imagine that they hired this individual for her ability to scare people. It's people like this that give the other agents a really bad name.  No wonder so many people are afraid of credit collection agents. Have you ever been confronted by a really hostile collections agent who refused to hear anything that you had to say? Have you ever dealt with a credit card company that refused to negotiate with you, even though you had no cash to give them?  

Posted on March 26, 2009 at 1:30 pm I WAS a collections agent, that was SCARY!!! lol! Seriously though, I am a very nice person and I didn't have it in me to do that type of job. I was very intimidated too by all the people that would be nice to me but then get on the phone at work and scream at customers. It seems so counter-productive to me. I have never had a bad experience with collectors, mainly because I do not answer the phone when they call. At this point they have all stopped calling my number because I never answer, I have the generic voicemail message (where the recording tells your number only, it does not have my name nor my voice), and a couple of times I may have answered and posed as a roommate saying that I no longer live at that number. Most times I have come in contact with a collector I either tell them I am unavailable, I hang up before they even start talking, or a few times I have had the money and was prepared so I settled whatever they were looking for. I guess I am lucky, I never got a nasty one! But I have definitely seen them in action!

Posted on March 26, 2009 at 1:45 pm I also worked as a collector...the job absolutely sucked!  I thought I was a strong person until I got that job.  You felt so worn out at the end of the day.  If debtors were not constantly yelling at you, you had to try and give them the extra "push" to pay and then the big boss was screaming because our goals were not met for the month.  It was a nasty situation.  We even kept a baseball bat in the office incase we ever needed it.  One time we had a debtor come into the office looking to fight one of our collectors because our collector was so nasty to him on the telephone.

Posted on March 26, 2009 at 3:36 pm In my office I deal with a lot of debt collectors, and some of them are extremely rude! There was this one woman who kept calling and calling and calling and I told her I would try to get some sort of payment to her and she started insulting our business and told me I was treating her like a dog. She didn't want to put me through to her manager and eventually hung up on me. I had to call and speak with the manager myself.

Posted on March 26, 2009 at 3:40 pm Hi Katia! Interesting job! I'm sure there are some very nice people doing collections work.  And, most likely, the collections agent that I dealt with was a true exception and very mean.  She was heartless and could care less that I was dealing with personal family grief. But I suppose there are good people and bad people in every job. Thanks for sharing the other side of the story. Good to know that there are some nice people out there trying to do a good job on behalf of the customer.