Death, Sex & Money: A Former Debt Collector's Unpaid Bills

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4.4 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 6 August 2024

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When Angela first started working at a debt collection agency, she says she barely understood what her job was. "I was so completely awestruck that people didn't pay their bills," she told Anna in 2019, when this episode originally aired. Angela ended up working as a collector for 15 years, working her way up and getting monthly bonuses for getting people to pay up. But then, in 2018, she was accused of being part of a scheme to collect debt in unlawful ways, and was banned from the industry for life. Soon after she started racking up debt of her own, and got calls from bill collectors. At first, she said, she would pick up the phone when collectors called, just to critique them. "Now I just block the number and move on," she said. "I will eventually get them paid off and until I can, there is no point in wasting their time." Podcast production by Katie Bishop in 2019. Death, Sex & Money is now produced by Slate! To support us and our colleagues, please sign up for our membership program, Slate Plus! Members get ad-free podcasts, bonus content on lots of Slate shows, and full access to all the articles on Slate.com. Sign up today at slate.com/dsmplus. And if you’re new to the show, welcome. We’re so glad you’re here. Find us and follow us on Instagram and you can find Anna’s newsletter at annasale.substack.com. Our new email address, where you can reach us with voice memos, pep talks, questions, critiques, is [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode is about debt and the people whose job it is to try to get you to pay it.
0:07.0	Those are people who work in collections.
0:09.0	And something interesting is happening with collections right now in the U.S.
0:14.3	Currently there are fewer Americans with debt in collections according to the New York Fed.
0:19.2	Nine percent of people had debt in collections before the pandemic, and that's down to 5% in late
0:26.1	2023.
0:28.2	There's thinking that some of that is because of the
0:33.2	payments and also because of other COVID-era supports that help people have
0:37.0	extra cash to pay down debt.
0:39.5	And there's also been another big change.
0:41.4	In April of 2023, major credit bureaus stopped including medical debt collection items under
0:47.8	$500 in credit reports.
0:50.6	Those previously made up 60% of debt in collections.
0:55.0	This week we're sharing an episode with you that first came out five years ago.
1:01.0	I interviewed Angela, a woman who built a career for herself in collections, and talked
1:06.8	without regret about the skills she developed to get people in debt to make a payment.
1:12.7	We also talk about what happened when she was investigated for illegal collections practices.
1:18.7	She ended up agreeing to a civil settlement, to leave the collections industry altogether and to pay millions of dollars in fines, which
1:25.6	she told me she couldn't pay and ended up leading to other debt for her, including medical
1:30.9	debt and credit card debt.
1:33.0	This episode is also about how we think and talk about other people's debts and the obligation to pay,
1:40.0	and how that can feel quite different when the debt is our own.
	...

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