Dealing With Debt Collectors - The Fun Approach

So you’ve found yourself in an unfortunate situation. You’re broke and the debt collectors have started to call. To some it may feel like the end of the world, but what are you going to do? Have fun with it I say. I mean really, what are they going to do about it?

I’ve recently experienced this first hand. No I’m not destitute. We moved to our new home and were issued a recycled telephone number. The people that had the number must have had some financial woes and the debt collectors won’t quite calling. This being the case I’ve decided that it’s time to have a bit of fun.

Answer with a foreign accent – This throws them off every time. Bill collectors have a preconception as to whom they’ll be speaking with. Answer in a British, Australian, French, or whatever accent you can come up with. It really messes with their head. Tell them in your foreign accent that you can’t understand a word they are saying and ask for an interpreter. It’ll really set them off!

Use call forwarding – If you have free call forwarding tell all your friends to call you cell for a couple of weeks and forward your calls to the return number the collection agency leaves on your answering machine. Can you picture it. Some deadbeat debt collector sitting in his little office makes his daily call to harass you. When he does his other line rings. Need I say more.

Bill Them! – Send them a bill for all the time you’ve wasted on their calls and letters and threaten to send them to collections if they don’t pay. I don’t know that it’s legal, but it sounds like fun. Of course you have to imagine their reaction.

Tell them that you have “left us” – Don’t’ tell them that you died. Just have a friend inform them in a woeful tone that you have “left us”. They won’t know what to do. I did this the other day and the guy panicked! He apologize profusely and I haven’t heard from them since.

Offer them a settlement – Offer them $1 as a settlement and insist that they put it in writing. I did this the other day and they started hollering in the phone at me. I started laughing and the guy got even madder. I thought he was going to explode.

Cuss them out – I’m not much of one for foul language. The law says that they can’t verbally abuse you, but it doesn’t say that you can’t abuse them. Have fun with it. Lower their self-esteem a bit. Tell them that you’d like them to call every day so that you can repeat the conversation.

Mail them coupons – Cut a bunch of coupons out of the Sunday fliers, tally up the amounts, and mail them to the debt collector. Request that they take the total off your bill.

I know that I’m making fun of a very tenuous situation, but if your broke what else can you do. There is no sense in beating yourself up over it so you might as well have fun. After a while you may look forward to receiving the debt collection calls!

This article is meant for entertainment. Any actions you take are of your own volition.

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