Collection agencies gear up for busy season

let them call, dont answer, eventually they stop, your credit is ruined anyway. I made mistakes when I was younger. Was not long (2 years) after, I bought a home a new car got platinum visa. They will not take you to court unless you really owe a tonne of money. Just dont screw it up again!

What people don't realize is that our economy is built on an elaborate ponzi scheme and everything we think we have is an illusion. At one point and time the rug will be pulled from under us and most people will be shocked and unprepared. Yes, the end of the world is at hand and Satan is seated behind a big oak desk on Bay street patiently waiting to devour us all.
psst... "it might be James",

To "Jade"...and the likes...yes, my parents helped me out, in my youth. What is the "crime" to your parents helping you out, when you are young?? THEY were the ones who brought you into this world, weren't they?? If ANYONE, besides YOURSELF, has any responsiblity to "help you out"...it should be your parents! However, THEY are also the ones who should be TEACHING YOU how to handle your money! So, you could be saying YOUR parents failed in this department?? Just an idea.
Anyway...to "Rick" and "Barry"...finally someone stated the obvious. Good for both of you!

I had to go on a disability a couple of years ago. I could not work. Somehow I found a way to support myself on $1,000 a month. Then about 6 months ago I got a stalker (who lived in the building) who victimized me over 50 times and prevented me getting even part time work.

When I knew I was in trouble I went to my creditors and told them the truth. I was surprised at who co-operated, and who did'nt. Most of the big lenders were pretty good. My community center, however, were truly evil.

The stalker is in jail, someone who owed me paid me back, and things are getting better. No one could plan for the do-do hitting the fan on this scale, but then, I never thought I'd be grateful to Rogers or TD Visa, either!

To Lisa: You just proved me to be right!!! (about mommy & daddy) I think it's great that you had that kind of support when you were younger. But, that doesn't give you the right to judge the situations of others! Did I at any point state that my parents never helped me out, or gave me good advice? NO! Of course they did...they were also the ones who inspired me to be educated and business orientated so that I may secure my OWN financial future! Not every situation can be helped! During the recent collapse of the housing market, my company suffered some financial loss. But no matter what my financial situation was, my employees always got paid! I put them first because they rely on me to put food on the table. If this doesn't make sense, you should take some time to think about what "department" your parents failed in!

16 calls on Friday and Saturday to my home from a collection agency's automated dialer - that's ridiculous, even more so is the fact that they are not even asking for the right person!

Lisa: I apologize...I don't mean to come across as a .....
I just think that , If you don't make your own way; you won't know how when you need to! To an extent, I understand and agree with some things you said......And I KNOW that there are far to many people living off the system that don't deserve the luxury of soaking up services created for battered wives and broken families! THOSE people are the ones who will one day "get what they deserve" But, not everyone in debt is a failure or a raging alcoholic.......That was my original point.

james- re Joanne - she wasn't screaming "it is not my fault" she is saying that sometimes things happen to us
take a happy well eductated couple with 2 kids, good savings, good jobs etc. but then one day the big breadwinner is out of work, ok use u.i and savings

all is manageable for a couple of months, but job in field is now scarce, wall mart and tim hortons don't hire, too educated, or not right field etc. and now u.i runs out, hydor now takes 2nd stance- food for kids priority, etc other bills fall behind, then you cash out your investments RRSP etc. to pay your bills- all ok for a month or so, but then they are gone, you sell the car- now you have to take ttc if and when you get job
ok now after a whille all resourses are exhausted, collection calls start, including hydro- what little money you have puts food on table and buys basic necessities and I do mean basic=wife pay has been cut back and day care for 2 kids when you are not on welfare is very, very very expensive
you now lose your home

you did nothing wrong, you saved your money and did not buy anything unnecessary, but loss of employment was your crime

at this point you would love to be able to worry about a cell phone bill! how trivial, and by the way, unless you are a DR or etc, they are an unnessary thing

this happened to us in the 1990's and we are going through it again due to the nature of my husbands job

I work now, and don't day care (yippee) but we are again at the cliff and trying to hang on to our home

hydro called, we missed last months payment! too bad at least I made the mortgage payment this month and got food on table

if notice, we did start again, saved for a home again, saved money etc. we were and still arn't stupied people when it comes to funds

I still don't even own a cell phone, it is a big waste of money, and my t.v.- basic cable, doesnt have a remote, but these are the scrafices you make to get ahead

don't tar everyone with the same brush

Linda: Well said! People like you deserve success! And at the end of the road you will have it all again....and you will have yourself to thank! You will have learned the lessons of all you have encountered....rather than relink on someone else to learn them for you! Last winter I was on mat leave and residential building had come to a stand still; leaving my husband out of work. We live within our means but, when the "means" stop suddenly...how do you go on living? We also have two children and were in danger of losing everything...We held on (barley) and are now trying to pick up the pieces.

To "jade"...no problem. :)Here's a question. You say "I wouldn't make my own way when I needed to." Right?? (When I left home, I got told to not come back, and I didn't.) Well, if you've got creditors after you...how is that making your own way? I'm not angry, just really trying hard to understand how some people think, is all.
Personally, I've had my days were I was down to my last dime, and scared. However, I guess different than most, I wasn't taught to rely on the Canadian "system" to get me through rough times. Seriously, I was taught that when there IS money, you SAVE like hell...for the times when there is nothing. That's all.
By the way, I am thankful for what I learned from many people on this blog.

I HAVE WORKED FOR A TRUSTEE IN BANKRUPTCY FOR 28 YRS, FINANCIAL PROBLEMS HAPPEN TO ANYONE. LEARN THE FACTS BEFORE YOU MAKE WHO COMMENTS, GO TO OUR WEB PAGE FOR ANYONE WHO IS READING THIS AND HAS MONEY PROBLEMS. WWW.MONEYTROUBLE.CA

I have a collection agency that used to constantly hound me, and bring me to tears because I couldn't make payments on my student loans. I know I made a promise to repay, but guess what, things change, life changes, it sucks but that's the reality. I am working on repaying them, but I do know it's not as fast as they would like. Deal with it. And, it's not my family's responsibility either, so collections shouldn't be asking me to ask them to pay it off for me. After finding out my rights, I have worked out something with them, and am constantly updating as my situation changes (generally for the better), but am not getting harassed anymore.

I have been employed by the federal government for over 25 years. About 15 years ago, one of our children went to a doctor and was informed that she did not have health care coverage. Since this had always been deducted off my cheques, I knew that there was something wrong and phoned the provincial health care. They" claimed" that I had cancelled my coverage but offered no proof (not to mention the fact that I was still getting deductions off my cheques!) They "graciously" re-instated my coverage, but then started billing me for 18 months worth of coverage that I had already paid for. Monthly phone calls, where I gave them all the pertinant information-account #, employer etc.resulted in, a year later a notice that I was being sued. At that point, I went to my employer & requested their help & it was ultimately resolved. My point is-you can do everything right & sometimes it just doesn't matter. I agree with the poster who said that you feel like you are a deadbeat write-off. That is the way I was treated, in spite of the fact that I had done NOTHING to start this whole incident. There was no respect--they didn't even hear what I was saying. I am much more callous now, when my youngest daughter got 2 months behind on her Student loan & they threatened to sue her (She had been sick & lost her job) I told her to tell them to go for it--she had a futon, a dresser, a 13" T.V. & a ghettoblaster & she had in fact made a partial payment as she was by then employed. They did ultimately agree to adjust her payments. What about the kids who are scared silly over something like that--or worse yet, what about the kids that are so sophisticated that they transfer cars, audio equiptment, etc to parents & write off ten times as big a debt by going "bankrupt"--it happens! Yes, we should pay what we owe, BUT Collection companies should have at least a few people with comman sense working for them.

My husband and I were doing very well, then he injured his back and ended up having surgery.
We are in no way spend thrifts. We pay a lot less in mortgage than most people pay for rent or car payments.Only $460.00 per month. We have no car payments, no young children, no personal loans and only had one low interest credit card each. We had had these cards for years. We both had excellent credit ratings.
Then he hurt his back. At the time, I was only making $9.00 an hour, working 40 hours per week. My husband is a contractor, self employed, could not get medical e.i. Winter time is long and cold where we live and we only have electric heat. We had three months savings for emergency. Well, hubby was off work for seven months with physio and many Dr.s visits .Because we live in the boonies, a visit to the specialist is a four hour drive. needless to say, we had to use the cc's for mere survival. We missed only a couple of payments and the cc companies put our interest rates up to 28%, added late fees etc. They did not want to help us out at all even though we tried to negotiate with them.
Because our credit rating was screwed by just two cc defaults, we could not even get the equity from our home to make the payments. And we have a shit load of equity. No one would touch us.
So, we said screw it, put the cc into credit counselling and let them deal with it. Now our credit rating will be repared in a couple of years and the cc companies are not getting any interest and they get smaller payments than we were paying originally.
It's not the collection agencies that are the problem, they are only doing what they are paid to do. The cc companies are the real assholes. Interest rates need to be capped and 28% should be illegal.

Lisa: FACT: You spend what you make! For example...If you made 500k a year, you wouldn't live in a town house and drive a caviler to save money "just in case"! We always lived within our means. We built a company from the ground up. We were young and not so credible, so we had to pay cash for everything in the beginning. My education was ridiculously expensive, and the tools of my husbands trad were a pretty penny as well. We did all of this while living in a two bedroom loft (shit hole). When we were ready, we got married (paid for it our selves) bought our house and traded in our Honda civic for my new Cadillac. We deserved all of it! It was blood, sweat and tears to do all of this but, we did it. We planed to have a baby in the spring of last year. While I was on mat leave the bottom fell out of the construction industry....Have you ever been well educated, with a great resume; and tried to get a job at Walmart to tie you over? Wont happen!! Now what?.....at this point I have puled out of my investments (what was left of them). Pondered how to pay our life insurance and cried myselfe to sleep wondering how to keep putting money away for my sons education fund (like my parents did for me)

I know allot of business owners in our field who didn't make it. They financed most of the equipment they use, and they thought they could weather the storm. We made it ....and that makes us a success (debt or not)

Did I mention that I am 27 and my husband is 25?

This time next year we will be back on top with only our selves to thank.......My goal is to be able to not only take care of ourselves, but to take care of our parents once they need it.
Sometimes it is necessary to indulge in the feast, so you have to heart to survive the famine!

I had a business for a while. Then things turn pretty ugly with the oil company; thru a zillion pages contract they extract a line saying that the money I lost with their business plan was, of course entirely my fault. So no question about any refund, corrections or arrangements. The last resort was a corporate bankrupcy. Awhile before I had been issued two business credit cards, one from Visa that I had to sign a personnal endorsement for, and another one from AMEX, for wich I was never asked to sign anything. When we went belly up, I dutifuly paid Visa what the business owed them because of the endorsement. But the AMEX account was simply put in the bankrupcy basket. Legal advices I got at that time all confirmed that course of action. Period. .... Not so!!!
Then the calls started for almost 3 years. I had to deal with 8 different collections agencies, 3 different acccointed lawyers, who all shot at me with every possible kinds of menaces, but they were still unable to get anything from me, and were also unable to impead my personnal credit rating, so I guess proving me right. My advice? Hold your grounds the most professionnaly possible .... Yeah I guess it's finally over now, haven't heard anything since a year and a half...But I can tell you AMEX is one sort of the ... worst one....

Ok Jade...Where I completely DISAGREE with you is...IF you DON'T have the money for the cadillac...you DON'T have the right to spend the money on the cadillac. IF I had YOUR attitude, which truly, I'm glad I don't...I would have a jaguar in my driveway right now. As it turns out, I only drive a "low end" toyota. BECAUSE of MY attitude...I'm happy when I have the money to go to East Side Mario's...which I hope to do this weekend.
By the way...if you CHANGE your attitude, just a bit...(I was YOU at one time...to a point)...you are possibly going to have alot more than I have NOW...and I am in my 40's. However, if you don't change your attitude, you simply won't be trusted anymore and you will seriously be paying with cash for everything. Period. People can and do live that way...it's just simpler to have SOME freedom in life.
Oh, and by the way, I paid for MY own wedding also!! :) (MY husband also paid HIS own education, just like you!) YOU are NOT the only couple to have had things hard.
There ARE ways of coping. However, some generations need to learn that you DON'T borrow money from anyone (parents or system or anyone else) that you can't "in faith" RETURN in "good time."
By the way...WE ALL THINK THAT WE DESERVE IT ALL!!

First off, after reading the comments... some of you are quite high and mighty and need to be taken down a notch. Nobody can %100 prevent having a collection brought against them. No matter how hard we try to be good people, things can happen in life that are out of your control. Myself, I have a few collections against me. Why? Well... I got injured and it took EI 4 months to send me a cheque and then they cut me off immediately because you're only allowed 15 weeks for an injury claim. My surgery wasn't until March and had 8 - 12 week recovery period. By this time, I barely managed to prevent losing my house never mind things like cell phones, etc which almost everyone has. So... if you think you're so perfect, just remember that not every collection is due to someone over spending or being negligent in their responsibilities.

As for collection agencies... they are the worst people to deal with. They start phoning your house at 8am on the nose and don't stop until 9pm.

The worst part about any collection though is that EVEN IF YOU PAY IT, it will still hurt your credit rating for the next 6 years from the date you paid it! Because everything negative on your credit file stays there for 6 years less a day.

Lisa: I can't have a sensible argument with someone with no common sense! I payed outright for the car!Because it was within my means at the time!!
In no way do I think we are "the only couple with problems"
You seem to think you are the only one doing anything right!
the point is: not every thing can be helped...no matter how well you planed!
The title of the discussion board: Have you had problems with collection agencies? Were you treated fairly? If you think anyone wants to hear your self righteous load of crap....you have been misinformed!

Sorry Jimmy James but you are wrong.
All of your credit cards, utility bills, loans, etc have a contract or an agreement that you entered into when obtaining their services. And all of these, at least in the fine print, will state that they have the right to sell or assign your account, including any debt to anyone else as and when they please.

So legally, yes you do "owe" the moneys due to the collection agency.

However, personally I despise collection agencies with a passion. They are ALL crooks, thieves, liars, etc. I believe that they only hire the slimiest, lowest educated, ill mannered ex-cons.

Therefore, I never, ever deal with collection agencies. On those occasions where I was in some financial difficulties, I always ignored and hung up on any calls from a collection agency.

My advise, if a collection agency is calling and harrasing you, then kindly ask the person calling you to please give you their home telephone number so that you can call them when it's more convenient to you. Of course none will ever do so. Anyone who thinks that they can call me at home but bar me from calling them at home does not get to speak with me.