I used to work in collections, and got LOTS of abuse from "customers," but that never bothered me. After getting cursed out 20 times a day, it loses its effect, and just gets old. Even the constant threats from people who wanted to sue me, or kill me, just got tiring. I had a couple of people who were unusually creative with their strings of insults, and I told them so, and offered them a discount on account of it. It was somewhat refreshing, at least, to have a job where I didn't have to be nice to people.
What bothered me about working in the field, was micromanaging managers, being reprimanded because the manager didn't know our policy/system as well as I did, being pushed to violate federal law just to get the money in, having to adhere to a dress code even though we were in a secured office and had no face to face contact with anyone (I used to say that I could do my job just as well if I came in wearing nothing but flip-flops and a towel, but they still insisted on the dress code), having to use an archaic (like 1983) computer system that couldn't be updated, having to call people who owed $4 when I had $50K accounts on my desk, outside managers being brought in who have no clue, having accounts taken off my desk just as money was coming in, dealing with insurance companies who didn't want to pay up, plus the commute, variable pay (commission), office politics, strict working hours. I never could decide which was worse, working with debtors every day, or working with collectors every day.
My first agency's unofficial policy was, "It's not about obeying the law, it's about not getting caught breaking it." And they followed that policy to the "T" They got sued every once in a while, but not nearly enough to even put a dent in their $7mil/month gross intake.
There were some damn funny moments, though. Wearing out the redial button. I remember once hearing a supervisor take a complaint call, he said "damn right he's harassing you, it's his job to harass you. I'm his supervisor and I'll make sure he harasses every day until you pay this bill." One woman got a standing ovation from everyone in the room when she was heard, yelling into the phone, "and I'm going to make your last days miserable!" One of the more successful collectors I knew would often tell debtors they had to "grab your ankles and take it." I saw two collectors double team a guy who insisted that he didn't owe any money, but they convinced him that he did, and that he better pay it right now, and when he got out his checkbook they realized they had the wrong guy (two Johns at the POE); one collector wanted to take the payment anyway, the other asked a supervisor, who told them they couldn't take the money; they ended up telling him to have his coworker call them back. I knew collectors who enjoyed making children cry on the phone. Another who would leave messages that started out, "Listen up you little slug!" I saw A LOT of collectors put pressure on debtors by illegally disclosing to third parties, like the mother-in-law ("do you know what kind of person your daughter married?") or the employer ("your employee is a thief, you better make sure he's not stealing from you too") or the parents ("you should really help your kid out with this before they end up in court" or "what's wrong with your family? Did you raise all your kids to be thieves?") (all real examples); you might be surprised with how well that works.
With commission, the money was sometimes good, though. And for some it's very good. Skip tracing was fun. Still, not a job I could recommend to most. I'm glad I'm in a different line of work now.
