Horrible Debt Collection Agency Experience

by Jenna
(Texas)

It's true that no one likes debt collection agencies. I actually had a horrible experience with one this past summer.

My husband had joined a gym at the beginning of 2009, which I thought was a bad idea anyway, because I knew that he would not use it enough for what we were paying for it. He went semi-consistently for about a month, and then we were paying $49 a month for nothing.

We pretty much forgot about the gym, and the monthly payment. The gym required a direct draft out of a bank account, and he had set it up with an account that we never really used much. We paid for about six months, and then my husband went off for Army basic training.

Before he left, we consolidated all of our bank accounts, closing the one that had the draft being taken out of it without thinking. Three months passed and I received a debt collection letter stating that we owed about $1200 to the gym. It then hit me that we had closed that account.

But, I knew that there was no way we owed that much to them. It was only $49 a month and we the account paid regularly, except for the last three months. I called the collection agency and was practically lectured to by the representative. He was immediately rude and wouldn't listen to anything that I was saying.

I told him while I knew that we owed something, it should be more around $150, not anywhere near $1200. He wouldn't hear me and said that the collection that they bought was for the amount listed in the letter. After being yelled at by him for a very long time, he hung up on me.

I was called back several days later by a different representative who told me that the letter that was sent to me was incorrect. And that we owed about $175, but if I paid within the next 24 hours, I could get a 50% discount and pay only $87.50.

I was very glad the matter was cleared up, however I hope that in the future debt collectors will listen, and not jump to conclusions with yelling and harassment.