"Are you going to pay this bill or not, or am I going to have to kill you?" Shady Debt Collectors

[AlabamaLibrul]

April 17, 2011

Bart Bryant remembers all too well the day a very nasty and confrontational debt collector called to speak to his wife. By the time Bryant decided to take legal action, the Connecticut-based blues-rock musician had been subjected to everything from racial and anti-Semitic slurs and sexually degrading comments about his wife to taunts urging him to commit suicide.

It started when an employee of a debt collection agency based in New York State pretended to be an attorney and asked to speak to Bryant’s wife about a small gas card debt his son owed. Bryant offered to take a message, but the collector had no interest in having a polite conversation. Bryant recalled: “The guy says to me, ‘Why don’t you mind your own fucking business and put your wife on the phone?’ I said, ‘I don’t know who you think you’re talking to, buddy.’ It turns into a shouting match between me and him. He hangs up. I get the caller ID. I call the number back.”

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http://www.alternet.org/economy/150638/am_i_going_to_have_to_kill_you_the_horrific_ways_abusive_debt_collectors_threaten_and_harass_their_victims

The language inside is profane, offensive, and at times ridiculous. This is, as always, nothing new. Just more to pile on the shit heap.

[closeupready]

1. I see that Bryant settled, but what about law enforcement authorities?

Hasn't the agency and the creditor committed crimes here, making death threats? I mean, isn't that a crime anymore?

[nykym]

2. From experience

should you pick up the phone and find yourself talking to a debt collector, just tell him you are recording the call, most times they will hang up. They don't want any evidence trail.