This week is called “Credit Sharks in Suits” and is about dealing with creditors. If you missed the previous week’s reviews you can catch them here; Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, and Week 4.
The Class
I had a complaint that in the first week that Dave uses extreme language and examples to make his point. He follows that up again in this lesson. He went on a long rant about how debt collectors are evil scum. Which I don’t disagree with the fact that the debt collection industry is out of control and basically unregulated. I mean, there are regulations and laws but they aren’t followed. I agree that they can be abusive and mean. The entire industry needs a kick in the pants (to put it nicely). However, I believe he took the whole thing a little far. I worked for two years at a major bank in their credit card customer service department and I knew plenty of people who worked in collections. I know people now who work in credit card collections at other major banks as well, I don’t think anyone I know is scum. The whole rant made me uncomfortable and at one point I leaned over and said to my husband “Some of those agents might be taking this course.” Because if I was a debt collection agent and heard someone going off on me like that I would have walked out.
I think a better use of that time would have been to lay out the debt collection laws and what to do when they break those laws. Because if you know the laws, and you know when someone is breaking those laws, it takes the power away from the debt collector and give it to you.
Ok, once we got past that the rest of course was pretty good. He did lay out some of the rules regarding debt collection practices and what to do when they break the law. He said to record every debt collections call and if they break the law you should call up their legal department and replay the recording to them. He gave an example of one young kid who recorded a call at 5:00am (it’s against the law to call that early) and then used the recording of that call to negotiate the balance of his debt. I think more tips and tricks that like to deal with creditors would have been helpful.
He talked about having a plan to deal with creditors and hits the point that a creditor’s job is to get you to pay them, they do not care about your situation.
He also introduced the “Pro Rata Plan” which is a method of fairly dividing up your debt payments when you can’t afford to pay all the minimum balances. Using this method will send something to every creditor even if it’s not the full minimum payment due. This will keep the creditors at bay for a little while so you can get back on your feet.
The Sharing
There wasn’t too much sharing this week which I was bummed about because I wanted to see what everyone thought about the dumping debt lesson. The Blues shared about their experience with identity theft. Mr. Blue has his identity stolen and the person opened lines of credit in his name and also was using his identity to work in Chicago. He said it was a full time job for months to try to clear it all up. Then two years after he thought it was handled he got sued in Chicago for some unpaid debts that were still lingering. Stinks.
The hosts of the class said they had gotten a call from a past student saying that he had just finished paying off $30,000 in debt, which is pretty cool. We also talked about wage garnishments and how that works. They can garnish up to 25% of your wages. Also, it turns out that in some states, and Arizona is one of them, that if you have two or more wage garnishments you can actually be fired for that. Pretty crazy! I’m not sure why that is but I looked it up and it’s true.
My wife had her ID stolen in her early adulthood. It took her so long to clear up her name (back then it was even more difficult because they were using paper checks and there wasn’t an internet to send documentation quickly). That experience forever changed her behaviors and, to this day, she’s ripping off the address labels on anything we get in the mail and we had to replace a worn-out shredder last year.
This behavior still remains even though we have Zander’s ID Theft Protection on our whole family. If something were to happen we would be able to turn it over to them and let THEM deal with whatever bank, dealership, or finance company was duped by the identity-stealer. We’re not going to ever go through what Mr. Blue has been dealing with again.
Lovin’ the series Ashley!
Thanks Steve. I’m sorry that happened to your wife. I’m sure it would change your behaviors.