Debt be not loud: the collector's gentle art

Collectors say theirs is like any other business - they're just trying to make money. Toward that end, the people at IntelliRisk, at least, avoid badgering clients.

Rather than play hardball with his client in Maryland, Harris spent 25 minutes on the telephone with him, chatting about the man's many financial problems and finally getting him to pledge a payment that was three times higher than what the man had originally agreed to pay.

Collection-agency managers often listen in on the calls that their collectors make to check up on them. And they'll expect the collectors to make a certain number of calls, and produce a certain amount of income. If they don't, the company loses the business and the collector can lose his job.

"It's a quota system," says Scott Cytron, managing editor of Recovery Adviser magazine. Such a work environment leads to stress, high employee turnover, and constant woes for the industry.

Tough telephone calls, especially in these rough economic times, can take their toll, too.

"As a collector, a lot of negative communication comes back your way" from clients, says Mr. Strausser. That can create high stress levels among collectors, and while industry trade group ACA International pegs job turnover at 10 percent industrywide, some agencies report much higher ratios.

Strausser uses motivational programs, bonuses, and competitions among workplace teams to keep up the camaraderie.

In Rock Hill, S.C., collection agency owner Gary Williams says he even has asked his head trainer to double as corporate chaplain.

Strausser says people pop up on his telephone lists because they've fallen into one of two categories of debtors - circumstantial or intellectual. A job loss, divorce, medical bills, or other sudden or unexpected event create a circumstantial debtor, while poor money management skills puts them in the intellectual pool.

"They don't know how to budget," he says.

When you dig deeper than those two causes, however, you find special circumstances in almost every instance.

"They're all different types of people," says Woodard. "You deal with them on an account-by-account basis."

The federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act governs what debt collectors can and cannot say and do in their efforts to collect on personal, family, and household debts. For example, collectors cannot:

• Call you at "inconvenient times or places." Generally, collectors must limit their calls to between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. local time.

• Contact you after you have written them demanding that they stop collection efforts (though this does not get you off the hook in terms of the debt).

• Call you if you are represented by an attorney, unless the attorney does not respond to them.

• Use threats of harm, violence, or obscene language.

• Use a false name.

• Use the word "debt" or "collector" on the outside of any envelope.

• Send you anything that mimics an official government document.

• Tell you they will sue, unless they intend to do so.

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