Bill Collector Secrets

There you are sitting watching a good movie and happily chomping away on your cheese Doritos when your phone rings. You pick it up expecting a pleasant chat with a friend or family member. Instead you're confronted with a harsh unfriendly voice that snarls "Mr. James E. Miller? This is Mr. Nasty at We Don't Care Bank - how are you doing this evening?"

Your mind races. Oh no you think! The sweat begins to pour out of your forehead. Your heart pounds so loud you wonder if the caller can hear it over the phone. Now you remember - you still owe them several thousand dollars but you're struggling just to keep yourself fed until payday. What are you going to do?

Sadly thousands of Americans get this kind of nerve-wracking call each and every day and if you're not prepared, it can launch you into some serious problems. But what can you do?

The bill collector holds all the cards. After all you owe them money so they can do whatever they want to make you pay up - right? Wrong. This is America and no matter who you are and how much you owe you still have rights.

Properly used, these rights can stop a bill collector dead in his tracks.

All you need is the right information and that's where we come in. Read on my friend and I'm sure you'll enjoy learning just how much power you truly have. If everyone in the country read this report and applied the tactics discussed in it, there wouldn't be a bill collection industry!

If you're in debt and need time to get some money together there are some tactics you can use now to make the bill collectors job much more difficult if not impossible. First you need to understand some basics. There are three different people who may be calling you.

First there is a collection agent from the bank or retail firm you owe money. Don't fool with these people. Most will be relatively polite and will carefully observe all relevant laws. If you ignore or evade them for a month or two, that will get your account transferred to a third party bill collector.

Third party bill collectors are an entirely different kind of creature. They are much less respectful, much more aggressive and often employ illegal tactics (which plays right into your hands).

Most are paid on a commission basis and can get extremely aggressive toward the end of the month when they are in the home stretch for a big monthly bonus (or just keeping their lousy jobs). If you get a livewire bill collector, you can usually get away with a lot.

The last caller may be an actual attorney for either the creditor or a bill collection agency. Play it straight with these guys. No fibbing, no lies, just the facts.

If a real attorney actually calls you, you can bet that they're not bluffing. If they say they are considering a law suit, they probably are. If it’s their lawyer who threatens you with a law suit, they will almost certainly make good on their threat.

In the past it was a common practice for bill collectors who never graduated high school to claim that they were in fact real lawyers who would sue you at the drop of a hat.

New laws make it impossible for others to claim attorney status so you can rest assured that anyone who claims to be a lawyer probably is one.

So when someone calls about a debt be sure to ask exactly who they are. Who do they work for? If they are an employee of the creditor firm, either deal with them (more on that later) or evade them and wait to deal with a third party firm's bill collector. It's your call.