Home » Money » Debt Collectors Talk a Load of Crap

Debt Collectors Talk a Load of Crap

Posted by Roger Keays, 26 February 2008, 12:26 PM

Hello lunch break. I've been looking forward to meeting you all morning. Hello chicken sandwich. You're tasty.

The debt collectors are onto me for an electricity bill which I paid using an old account number. The company got my money and I spent weeks trying to get them to fix my account before getting fed up and changing providers. So now I have a warning letter that they have referred a 'collection agency' to retrieve my 'debt'. This basically just means I can't answer private numbers on my mobile for a while. Sorry, but I'm not explaining the situation again!

My first experience with a debt collector was a few years ago when I rented an overnight video thinking it was a weekly. I returned it 9 days later and was subsequently sent an invoice for $50, which was ... a surprise.

When I didn't pay the invoice I then got another letter in the mail which I've kept amongst my nostalgia. It begins:

LETTER OF DEMAND

Records indicate that you have not settled your outstanding account with our client.

TAKE NOTICE we are currently seeking instructions from our client to prepare documents for the issue of a Court Summons against you for the recovery of the above debt.

Unless the outstanding amount is paid immediately or an arrangement made legal proceedings may be commenced without further notice and you may incur extra costs.

Yours Faithfully...

It is actually quite scary when you first read a letter like this. Relax... I told myself, although I was nervous about the whole thing. To calm myself down I did what any sensible blogger would do - check the Internet. After a few searches and a phone call to Legal Aid QLD I started to feel a lot better. This is what I learnt:

Debt collection is a business, not a law
Companies sell debts to debt collectors
A debt collectors primary weapon is intimidation (extortion anyone?).
Threats of legal action are just threats. No one is going to take you to the Small Claims Tribunal for a $50 fine (I think the filing fee is $200 or something).
Defaulting on a debt may get the debt recorded by a credit association.

I decided not to pay the debt just because I was annoyed at being intimidated. I did get my own back in some small way though, because whenever they rang me on my mobile I had an extended conversation about "what happens next". At some stage, the cost of those phone calls must have exceeded the value of the debt because eventually they just stopped calling.

I now go to a different video store, who are much more civil in the way they handle overdue fees.

<< More Legal Bollocks

Back to Money