Things I've told creditors

Money might be tight now, but some years ago it was really bad. Try suddenly losing 2/3 of your income and see how well you do.

At first, the phone calls from creditors bothered me. Later, I realized there wasn't a darn thing I could do about it. A person can get used to anything after a while. Eventually, I began to look upon the phone calls as an entertainment opportunity. Lord knows, I couldn't afford most ways of amusing myself.

Here's a few helpful samples of real events:

Creditor calls and is very rude to me. I say, "I'm sorry, but you are being rude. If I give you money, I'll be encourage rudeness. I can't abide rudeness."

Creditor calls and gives me a hard time. Finally I tell him, "You know, once my phone service gets cut off I'll never have to talk to you again. I'm looking forward to it."

One Credit actually threatened to send a couple guys over to my house. "Please do," I said, " I could use a little light exercise."

If you can get them away from their script it can be interesting. I asked the caller if he was calling from a call center. He said he was. Then I told him that the average call center employee only lasts 6 months on the job. Look around, I said, notice the high turn over rate? He admitted it was high. He told me he had been on the job three months. Then I told him in a fairly short time, he could be in my shoes. The poor guy seemed quite troubled by the time he hung up.

Remember, the creditor has to take part of the blame here. They were stupid enough to loan you money.

It took four years, but everybody eventually got paid. Local people first. Then the ones who were polite and reasonable. The very last were the rude and threatening ones.

-Sixbears