To think that debt collectors are the SCUM of the earth!!!

[lucyellensmum]

What the hell makes someone want to take a job that capitalises on someone elses misfortune.

The majority of people in debt are in that situation through no fault of their own. There of course is an element of bad money management but most people avoid it - don't they??

I have had the unpleasant task of dealing with the debt collectors who took on my overdraft, which i must admit i stuck my head in the sand and should have sorted it out before, but i didn't due to PND and other reasons.

I have agreed to make what i feel is a reasonable monthly payment of £50 as this is all i can afford. I get monthly phone calls telling me this isnt enough etc etc - its a debt of just under 2K, so it will not take forever to clear. I am hoping to be in a position to clear it sooner.

So, they ring me last month - they say, "ooh, we can put you through to our sister company they might be able to help you" no mention of a further loan - but it turns out they are peddling a further loan. I refuse as this clearly makes no sense. They say, ok wait for the company to get back to you. This was ELEPHANT loans by the way, so they are a sister company to debt collectors loan sharks. Now because i refused the loan they say im not making the effort to clear my debt I missed last months payment because the man from elephant said wait for them to call.

Now i get a solicitors letter demanding all the money - yeah right, i can;t afford £50 so i am not going to be in a position to pay it all off am i!!

I phone them, they talk to me like im an idiot - im not, im just not in a good position financially at the moment, ive posted about this before, things are sorting themselves out but people like this making unreasonable demands dont help.

They refuse to put anything in writing but are not insisting on an income report form - so i said, ok, you send me one i'll fill it in - so he said, no, go away and make a spreadsheet on excel (assuming a lot there then!!) and send it in to us, i said, without a request in writing then you can go without - he said, they dont have to put anything in writing, my DD was screaming by this point, wanting her mummy, so i told him, right, i'll pay £100 tomorrow and £50 next month, etc, not a penny more - like it or lump it.

These people are bullies, and if i had been more mouse like as i have been in the past they would have bullied me into an agreement i couldnt possibly keep. Yes, i know the original debt was my own fault, but that is besides the point. People in debt arent just avoiding payment, they are in money difficulties and its shit and you (debt collectors) can all fuck right off!!

Sorry, rant over

I agree some of them are the scum of the earth cough mercers cough. (IMO obviously). A lot of them are reasonable human beings, but some are wheedling lying bullying scum, who will tell outright lies to get you to pay and be totally rude and insulting over the phone, you don't owe the money to them personally so why be so nasty?

I don't know how many times I said "The CAB are negotiating a payment plan, they have asked me not to make any payments", but it must have been hundreds.

So glad I never have to answer the phone to them again.

Consolidation loans aren't bad, some of the companies who offer them to the poor credit history market are unpleasant. If you have a good credit history and shop around you can get a good deal from a reputable company.

My old neighbour did it so that her own house wouldn't be repossessed. I don't suppose anybody dreams of being a debt collector when they grow up. She did it to solve her own money problems.

thankyou for the support everyone, well most of you anyway.

I have to be fair and say that this debt is probably my own fault, the bank were reasonable but i stuck my head in the sand and the bank charges built up and up and up, it wasn't that i didnt care - it was out of sight out of mind, so now it has bitten me in the arse. This was for a student overdraft, so not a flat screen telly.

With the company i have to deal with, it very much depends who i speak to. There have been a couple of agents who have been more than helpful, polite and really very nice. Example: First person i spoke to, very aggresive, rude and intimidating. I was told i would have to pay £150 a month, i said i would pay this just to stop him yelling at me down the phone. I was suffering from PND and just couldnt cope. I went to my HV and i could barely speak - she told me to phone them back up. Im not usually a timid person so i plucked up all my assertiveness, ready to give as good as i got - spoke to a lady and she said £50 a month would be fine, was really nice and supportive, i just burst into tears with releif. I have had a mixture of dealings since. But you just know sometimes you have a jumped up little fucker, still wet behind the ears, enjoying the power rush.

I will NOT be bullied. I will pay up, every month, what i can afford to pay - right now that is £50 a month. My problem is that our income is erratic so can't garuntee to have the money on same day etc. Of course they don't want to hear this. I am not happy to provide them with an income breakdown without anything in writing from them. So i wont be doing that until i get it.

The problem is, we have done the borrowing to get out of debt issues. Things with the business are picking up slowly, if people were to just give us a bit of breathing space to get back on our feet we would be OK.

I would like to apologize though, to all the decent debt managers out there. A jobs a job after all and we all have bills to pay. sorry for any offence caused.

Peachy, ive never had to deal with bailiffs, and stuff that job for a game of soldiers. But its not people like your husband i have the problem with. There is help for people on low incomes, oh yes - our income from last year was £7K, we were told to claim council tax credits - 78p a week, yep 78p!!

The ironic thing was that most of that debt is made up of bank charges, in the first place i was only £200 overdrawn

I still think there is nothing to be lost by asking CAB to assess your incomings and outgoings. You don't have to declare it to them until asked but it would add weight to your argument and offer of £50 and save you a job later. However you have to stick to the offer and not default, even by a few days.

the problem with our earnings is it is so erratic, we have had no income for eight weeks, but in the next few weeks should be able to get a few grand in, its all accounted for though. So its actually very difficult to budget, almost impossible really.
I'll pay these bastards and stick my head firmly in the sand re everyone ese
s

Base it over a period of months then , I'm sure CAB would help.

i agree erratic or not the cab can send them a letter and they might get off your back

I might do that, thanks custy. Its very difficult as DP downright refuses to go to CAB, even though we have mounthing debt. I keep holding on to the fact that one day, this business might work and we will reap the benefits, but just now i just feel that i get all the stress whilst he potters about in his shed

this walks you though it

thanks for the link custard - IF my computor condescends to open it i'll let you know if there is anything i can do from it. Thanks

I keep telling myself, one more year, one more year - then DD starts school and i can get a job. I really really want to stick to this and it is only another year

It opened. On the surface it all looks very easy, but actually doing it - its very scary.

Message withdrawn

I do need DP to know though, because he knows how much we owe on credit cards. We haven't been spending, we have just had to use them to live on . I can't face the confrontation as things are OK between us just now - money always buggers it. I know i just need to cling to the rock face for a bit, but its hard.

You're right, you need dp to face up to the debts too and accept his role in creating and managing them. However, until you are able to persuade him to do so, you will continue to feel a victim of these companies. If, as you say the company isn't really generating enough income, then at some point you both need to review it and perhaps cut your losses and look for a more secure income, short term at least to address it. Continuing to run up credit cards for day to day living expenses isn't a solution and I think you realise that.

CAB would still be able to give you some pointers as to how to look at your budget, income, benefits etc but to do the calculations to negotiate with the creditors they need the full picture , which inevitably involves dp too. You can regain control of this but only with honesty and a willingness to reevaluate. You may not want to rock the boat but by delaying you are creating more stress for yourself and a worse situation to face when you do.

no debt collectors aren't the scum of the earth much in the same way clampers or traffic wardens aren't.
they can't force you to pay debt you don't owe much in the same way you won't be clamped if you park legally(ok everyone will now know someone who got clamped in the wrong).
the point is if you took on the responsibility of debt people attempting to make you pay back what you owe (as long as they are doing it within their legal rights i.e. no violence/legitimate means) then they are certainly not the scum of the earth.
i'd be more likely to put that label on someone who refuses to pay their debt and wants to play the victim and blame everyone else.

We had a very good friend - a musician, excellent and v talented. He simply wasn't making anough money and had left school with no qualifications etc etc. The only job he could find at the time, who would even give him an interview, was as a debt collector. We talked about it for a long time because he really didn't want to do it, but desperately needed to earn money regularly. He was not the scum of the earth. He was desperate. He needed a job because he was in debt and didn't want the debt collectors at his door! People get into debt for all sorts of reasons and some are less culpable than others; but no one forces people to spend money they don't have.

I'm sorry you're in this position, LEM, I know exactly how you feel. I was in the same place myself just over 5 years ago, right down to having had my head in the sand (making the whole thing worse!) I owed much more than you do. But I got in touch with a company called www.payplan.com, initially online, then they called me back; they were fabulous. I think it's the same thing the CAB do; sort out a payment plan for you and negotiate with your creditors. But the best thing for me was that once I'd told the man on the phone my situation, the first thing he said to me was "okay. Now, the important thing is this: you, personally, will never have to speak to any of your creditors again. If any of them telephone you, just say that payplan are dealing with it and that we will contact them asap. Then put the phone down. Same with ANY correspondence you get from them - we will send you some prepaid envelopes, and when you get anything in the mail relating to your debts, send it to us."

They did an income/expenditure with me, over the phone; then agreed with me how much I could afford to pay back each month. They were fair as well, I was planning on leaving myself practially nothing for myself each month, but they disagreed and said no, you need some cash for yourself, otherwise you will default. They spoke and wrote to my creditors themselves and got them to agree the plan (often they sorted that interest stopped accruing as well). Then every month, that amount of money came out of my bank account and went to payplan - and they forwarded various amounts of it to my various creditors. Any problems, I spoke to payplan. The freedom of being able to say "I will not be discussing this - I have people dealing with it" to the constant callers, and as they were getting regular payments, the calls did stop! And I finished paying my whole debt at the beginning of this year. Hooray!

Sorry this is a bit of a looooong post, hope it helps

Ooops...forgot to say, YANBU. I used to work part time as a debt collector, for a very short space of time, waaay back. And I was rubbish at it, because I just wasn't stroppy enough. We were told to more or less bully folk. And the ones who did, met their targets. This was a long time ago and the company I worked for are now out of business - don't know if it is because of their tactics or not...!

I must be the scum of the earth then 'cos I worked in the collection dept of a bank for years. Fair enough, a lot of people get into debt through unforseen circumstances - an accident or illness that results in a long time unemployed - but others do totally take the piss. I've seen serial bankrupts, people who have deliberately run up tens of thousands of pounds in debt with no intention of ever paying it back. I've had people telling me they can't pay this month 'cos they're going on holiday, income & expenditure forms where they list £20 a month for magazines, £40 a month for ciggies & booze as essentials.

And it's not only the debtors who get harassed & bullied - I was always polite & helpful but still got called every name under the sun. I even got asked how I could sleep at night - the answer was that I slept fine as my mortgage was getting paid.

I'm sorry you're having such a shit time but just 'cos you've had to deal with one or two arseholes doesn't mean that all debt collectors are the scum of the earth - most of them are just doing what they have to to get by. It is worth trying CCCS btw or if you can lay your hands on a lump sum from a relly or whatever you could try offering a %age of the total balance as full & final settlement of the debt - sometimes a company will accept a 50% lump sum & just write of the remainder of the debt.