Collection Agencies Don't Care

by Tony
(NY,NY USA)

My experience with collection agencies has not been positive at all. My general impression of them is that they don't care at all about a person's problems.

I have mainly dealt with medical bills, those of which the insurance company did not want to cover. Whenever I receive a letter or a phone call, I sense no compassion or understanding for what I am going through.

I sense that the collection agencies only want to get paid in whatever way they can. There is no empathy. They don't try to work with you or help you to figure out a way to pay off the outstanding debt.

What would help change the general opinion of collection agencies is if they offered more help. Threatening letters and harassing phone calls only make people in debt more stressed out than they already are.

There needs to be more compassion and teamwork between the collection agency and the person in debt. Solutions need to be worked out together. Collection agencies need to make offers that are reasonable and accommodate the problems that the person in debt faces.

People in general are ashamed to be in debt and want to do whatever they can to pay them off if indeed the debt is valid. Threats and harassment make people less likely to want to pay off the debt because there is no pleasure in paying someone who treats you horribly.

However, if an agency approaches with empathy and the willingness to truly help, then debtors are more likely to want to pay off what they rightly owe.