Heads up people. They will even use face book to track you down if you dont keep a bad number for them to call.

Collectorinrage: Have you ever been in someone's shoes who has bad debt that they cannot pay. It stresses you out so bad that you can't even breath?

Have you ever had to be a nurse to your significant other because of a broken back at the age of 22 years? Committed to 24 hour care and working full time as a server?

Have you ever had to claim bankruptcy because you couldn't even make the minimum payments on $15000.00 debt?

Have you ever had a 6 figure income and in one fellow swoop it dropped to $16000.00 for 7 months before any financial help came in?

If the answer is no to any one of those questions, than you have no right to sit and judge and offer your inexperienced opinions. You claim that collection agencies can understand about unfortunate situations ( ie: cancer, broken backs etc) but I COMPLETELY disagree. Was the collection agencies understanding of my situation when I tried to make arrangemets to pay ( before I claimed bankruptcy). The answer is NO!!!! Instead they didn't believe me and claimed that I was lying. They HARRASSED me at work, harrassed my family and friends and called and left messages at least 4 times a week. All for what? $15000.00 worth of debt?

So Mr. collectorinrage, DO NOT come on here and VENT your issues with debtors and expect ANY sympanthy from me or many others, we don't operate like that.

PS: Learn how to spell before you put yourself out there and verbally bash this site.

a

It's an interesting ethical question however, no?

Is it ethical to use deception to obtain information that would otherwise not be revealed. When I worked as a PI these were referred to as "pretext" calls, and were generally forbidden by larger institutional or government clients.

The defence or justification when using "sneaky" tactics is that it was only "fair" as the person had done something wrong and normal methods were not working.

I suppose that collections agents and skip tracers use the same justification. The person being sought has done something wrong (defaulted on a debt or absconded with physical property they owed money on) and it's only fair that these techniques be used to locate them. A "good guy catching the bad guy" situation.

The truth is that the collections agent or skip tracer is allegedly a professional, and playing games with ethics is always a slippery slope, if you're prepared to lie about your identity and the reason you're seeking someone then what else did you lie about?

The truth is that not all defaulted debtors are deadbeats and not all collectors are lying scumbags, but if the debtor is subject to consequences for defaulting on their obligations then so too is the collector subject to consequences if he/she/it steps over the line while trying to collect.

Fair is fair.

vampchick... agreed...

It's always fun to complain about others until you get into the situation yourself.

I hope that if collectorinrage ever gets dug in really deep and has a collector call him, he'll come back and tell us about the experience.

"I can tell you myself I have a crappy credit rating, because sometimes it is difficult to make all the payments even being self employed, things happen and peoples lifestyles and financial pictures do change."

shhhhhh....collector in rage might hear you and start harassing your mother.

Deleting Post

I believe that bill collectors are feeling the pinch, since 90% of the people will file for bankruptcy this year. If any bill collectors are looking for work, Tim Horton’s is hiring and I hear the tips are good.

Ye Gods but I hate these angry and aggressive collection agents coming into sites like this and blasting everyone with their holier than thou, debtors are scumbags, attitude.

Seriously, get off your high horse. You are not better than anyone else, it's just the brainwashing you get at your little 'job' that makes you think you are.

Don't worry it's on me.