Debt Collectors Increasingly Using Abusive Threats, Insults, Lies: Report

It's a debt collector's job to be nasty. And lately, they've performing that task quite well.

Debt collectors have been adopting increasingly unpleasant tactics, according to a recent report from the market research firm Marketdata Enterprises. Collectors are said to be cursing, threatening and insulting the people they're trying to get money from. And in many cases, they're telling lies that violate the law.

The ramping up of negative tactics comes amid a climate of widespread hardship, when people are especially unwilling or unable to cough up cash on demand. Millions of Americans are out of work. Millions more aren't getting raises. And huge swaths of the country are getting by with no significant savings, instead living paycheck to paycheck.

Debt collectors have been becoming increasingly aggressive at a time when their revenues have been at a historic high. It's true that the industry saw its revenues fall in 2008 and 2009, when the economy cratered. But that was the first time that had happened in over a decade, according to Marketdata.

And in 2009, at the lowest point of that two-year plunge, debt collector revenues were still at $11.12 billion, Marketdata notes. That's over a billion dollars more than the industry took in at any time between 1993 and 2003.

The next year, in 2010, revenues were on their way back up, to $11.74 billion.

Still, even with their revenues on the rise, profits are down at many companies. The collection field has become more crowded lately, since consumer technology is now at a point where it's easy to run a debt-collection agency from your living room. And with so many Americans strapped for cash, collectors are often trying to squeeze blood from a stone.

That's part of the reason debt collectors have lately been so uncivil, with some companies making horrifying threats, like the firm that allegedly told a debtor they were going to dig up her dead daughter and hang her from a tree if she didn't pay her bills. Others go on an all-out harassment campaign, calling early in the morning and late at night, and reaching out to the relatives and former romantic partners of debtors to try and apply indirect pressure.

In some cases, collection agencies are said to be calling people who don't even owe any money. At least one company has been accused of lying to the people it calls, saying things like "you'll be arrested if you don't clear your debts" -- a tactic that happens to be against the law.

Comments

[Porkchop Paul]

04:00 PM on 10/24/2012

Keep a whistle by the phone, there's not a debt collector alive today that can take a whistle blast to their ear!

[Labor Party]

06:10 AM on 07/06/2012

If they get overly aggressive (or abusive) just tell them you are going to file a chapter 7.

First ask for their name and refuse to answer questions until you get all the information you want. (they act like they have some authority they really don't most of the time)

I had one try to collect a debt I had already paid and I am sure they were only too glad to get off the line with me.

[Amanda Matthews]

08:07 AM on 05/25/2012

These are examples of people who's parents should have been FORCED to practice birth control.

[myakkakat]

11:37 PM on 04/14/2012

The best way to answer your telephone is the same way every company does these days.

"Hello. This conversation may be recorded for training purposes."

See how many hang on the line and are nasty then.

Then I WOULD record them since they'd been warned.

[goodmarina]

09:38 AM on 04/15/2012

brilliant idea!!!

f & f

[myakkakat]

10:04 AM on 04/15/2012

Thank you! Back at you!

[jamal49]

04:04 AM on 06/28/2012

Just so you know, I have done this repeatedly and it works every time. (All the calls concern debts owed by someone with a similar name as mine but who lives in a different state all together, different birth date, social, etc.)

Once, I told a collector after she introduced herself, "by the way, I am recording this for quality-assurance purposes and for possible future litigation". She freaked out and started cursing at me, telling me that is was illegal for me to record any conversation (it is not as long as the person talking to you is made aware that you are recording).

A second later, one of her monitors/supervisors jumped in, threatened that they were dialing directly to the FBI and I would be arrested for violation of federal laws, blah blah blah. I simply said, "go ahead, call the FBI, sue me". They hung up.

It DOES work. Just make sure that after they introduce themselves that you IMMEDIATELY tell them that you are recording. Do not engage in any other type of conversation. Just say right off that you are recording. Otherwise, you ARE breaking the law.

But, it works. Shuts them up every time. After a while, the calls stop.

Yet, I did have to sic an attorney on one persistent debt-collector for harassing me even though we could prove immediately they had the wrong individual. That also worked. Still, it was a pain in the neck.

[dwcrete]

08:55 PM on 04/14/2012

Credit, who needs it now? Its what got us into this mess. Tell the collectors to stick it. Remember being on a phone works both ways - have fun with them, be creative.

[ZhyKitty]

09:22 AM on 04/27/2012

I put my son, the ultimate phone troll, on with them.
We have them calling here for people we've never heard of, and they don't care that you don't know who those people are...they won't stop calling..so I feel having my teenage son troll them is fair...and we all get a huge laugh out of it...
If there was money to be made off of his particular talent, he'd be a wealthy man...he has all of us laughing to the point of tears when he gets on the phone with them.

[Century21Thinking]

11:08 AM on 04/14/2012

When I negotiate for clients I always have so much fun with collections agencies.
For some reason they think abuse can only go one way, then they get it from me.
They don't like it.

[Amock]

09:15 AM on 04/14/2012

My response: Go ahead dig up Dad I never care much for him anyway.

[Amock]

09:10 AM on 04/14/2012

Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me. So go ahead call me all the names you want you STILL want get your money.

[Micheal Frisbie]

11:42 PM on 04/13/2012

a much simpler solution might be to require all lenders to first offer to sell debtors their own note for twice what collection agencies are paying for them. my understanding is that the notes or contracts are being sold for pennies on the dollar. i would be willing to bet that most debtors could come up with twice what the collection agencies are paying in order to settle their debt and end part of their financial problems... and the lenders could at least get twice what they end up collecting currently in these situations.

[Century21Thinking]

11:09 AM on 04/14/2012

That works sometimes.

[mariusvinchi]

11:04 PM on 04/13/2012

Shortly after getting a new cell phone number I received a call intended for the previous owner. The caller identified himself as an attorney representing a bank. I explained to him that I wasn't the person he was looking for as this number was recently assigned to me. At that pont he abruptly hung up. A few days later, he called back and I reiterated my previous statement at which point he called me a liar. He began a tirade with threats of everything from arrest to "seizing" my assets etc..
At this point I laughed and said he should start with this new cell number and hung up. The next day another person from the same firm called and identified himself as an "investigator" with the "States Attorney's Office" (in my area, civil torts are handled by either County Courts or Federal Courts) and he was in possession of a "criminal warrant." Again, I PATIENTLY explained that I was NOT the person they were looking for and I recorded his call and any future calls would be referred to the US Attorney's Office, the REAL States Attorney's Office for prosecution...Needless to say, the "you've been recorded" must've gotten through and they never called back....

[wyattc71]

07:52 PM on 04/13/2012

I had a friend that would always tell collectors that called that he was dead. They did know how to handle that response and he wouldn't get anymore calls.

[LCdruid]

08:18 PM on 05/02/2012

a true deadbeat.

[wyattc71]

07:32 PM on 04/13/2012

In the past, most collectors recieved a base pay salary. However, many companies have implemented lucrative incentive plans for collectors based on how much money they collect on a monthly basis. As a result, in my opinion, many collectors has chosen to cross the FDCPA line and resort to scare tactics in order to collect. In fact, I recently read an article that collectors are using facebook to hunt people down, befriend them, and then shake them down for money at the risk of public humilation.

[bipolarbears60]

06:55 PM on 04/13/2012

I've had debt collectors call me looking for relatives. My response is: "What's in it for me.? Are you going to give me a cut of what you eventually collect?"

That pretty much gets them off the phone.

[outtopastur]

06:45 AM on 04/14/2012

Nice!

[Century21Thinking]

11:11 AM on 04/14/2012

A1!

[GelderlandValley]

06:36 PM on 04/13/2012

USA Today notes that over 200,000 households will use their tax rebate this year to pay for (drum roll please) a bankruptcy filing and associated legal fees. The NBER research confirms a little known fact (outside of bankruptcy lawyer circles) that 'at the first part of the year, when Americans receive their tax refunds, there almost always is a spike in personal bankruptcy filings.' but this has been especially true since the cost of bankruptcy soared (from $921 in 2005 to $1477 two years later.

[Tom Hn]

06:00 PM on 04/13/2012

People in this country has absolutely no financial responsibility. While making minimum wage, people pay minimum payment for things they can never afford. On top of it, they comfortably assume infinite job security.
The debt collectors and the bankruptcy court will teach them a lessen they never learned.

[HoffmanSpeaks]

06:19 PM on 04/13/2012

"infinite job security"??? what planet are you talking about!? Of course the people offering financing to people that shouldn't be taking it deserve no penalty what so ever.... on your planet..

[Tom Hn]

06:49 PM on 04/13/2012

You don't recognize sarcasm when you see it. What I meant was it is very common but wrong for people to comfortably assume infinite job security.

[GelderlandValley]

06:27 PM on 04/13/2012

Try you scare tactics somewhere else. Won't work anymore.

Best thing ever happened to me was get put on bad credit, Paid everything off CASH (even my home) How? Got overseas job making 100k a year TAX FREE and STILL didn't pay the old debts back because they went to a COLLECTION AGENCY. Screw them and screw banksters.

[Tom Hn]

06:46 PM on 04/13/2012

Oversea earning is still subject to income tax so it cant not be tax free. Your story is poorly made up. I won't be surprised if you made up some bigger number like a trillion a year tax free...