How To Deal With Collections - Part 2

Collection agents, just like any other phone solicitor, are on a timer.  You can use this to your advantage.  For the most part, I have dealt with very nice and understanding people.  If you are honest with them and explain what you are doing to make things right, there won’t be a problem with talking to them.  Occaisionally, there will be the aggresive agent that will tell you to “get a job at Mac’s”.  Be calm and let them know you are doing the best you can.

To keep them talking, take control of the conversation with questions.  Ask them questions, short and sweet.

After you are finished explaining something use, Alright?, or Does that make sense?  After a few of these, the agent may or may not realize you are trying to “close” them, a sales technigue.  The experienced ones will end the conversation quickly when they realize who they are dealing with.  The newbs will try to get something from you and fail, of course.

If the agent appears to be ignoring your explanation, use something like, Did you listen to what I just said?  It may come across as rude, but, they need to know what your situation is.  Also realize the agent is taking notes on the other end and the coversation is being recorded for “quality assurance” purposes.

Then in about five or six minutes, they will close the coversation and hang up on you.  Don’t be rude, just keep them talking.  If you can make a payment, by all means do so.  The point of this is to give you time to recover your finances, not to write anything off.