If you go on the Internet, you will find all kinds of complaints about bill collectors and the firms they work for. Believe it or not only about 70% of complains are legitimate. This is only a small part of the problem. Because people are accustomed to getting into verbal fights with bill collectors, it is easy for them to identify them as the source of their problems. Although people are quick to place the blame on them, the biggest problem is that people do not have adequate knowledge as to how the collection process works. I am talking about all the tricks, ploys and strategies that are used to get people to pay their debts.

Let me go over a typical example that happens every week in collection firms across the country. Let’s say a man owes $5,000 on a credit card that has been turned over to a collection firm. Because he has experienced a garnishment that not only hindered him from paying his bills, his credit was messed up for years. Here is what happened. Not understanding the typical 16 mistakes that a person can make on a collection call, he ends up making about 10 of them. Because he does not know what has happened, he thinks he has conducted an excellent call.

Since no one has revealed to him the proper way to conduct a collection call, he is open for all kind of legal strategies employed by collectors to get him to pay. What Makes matter worse is that although he does not know it, he has fallen for some of the oldest tricks in the book. The collector that called him is adept at using all the right words, proper pleas and knows how to appeal to his emotions.

Here are just some of the mistakes this man made. Because he did not realize that he could settle his account and his fear of a garnishment was foremost on his mind, he was quick to tell the collector that he has an uncle that he can borrow the money from.

He does not know that he has the option of possibly settling his account for $1,000 to $2,500. He also promised to pay his debt without taking into consideration his other financial obligations. He found out after he paid off his account that he could not only have settled his account for much less, he could have gotten the account deleted from his credit report. Although he feels that the collector is a crook, the collector has not broken any laws.  So now can you see why people perceive that bill collectors are driving them crazy?  So what do you think? Do you know anyone that can benefit from this information?  I’d like to hear from you.