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The one area debt collectors invest heavily in is the automation that allows them to engage in high-intensity harassment. They use "predictive dialers" to make multiple calls at once, only connecting the collector to the calls that pick up. They will call you repeatedly. They'll call your family, something they're legally prohibited from doing except to get your contact info, but they'll do it anyway, betting that you'll scrape up $250 to keep them from harassing your mother.

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Cory Doctorow 2y ago

These dialing systems are far better organized than any of the company's record keeping about what you owe. A company may sell your debt on and fail to keep track of it, with the effect that multiple collectors will call you about the same debt, and even paying off one of them will not stop the other.

Talking to these people is a bad idea, because the one area where collectors get sophisticated training is in emptying your bank account.

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Cory Doctorow 2y ago

If you consent to a "payment plan," they will use your account and routing info to start whacking your bank account, and your bank will let you do it, because the one part of your conversation they reliably record is this payment plan rigamarole. Sending a check won't help - they'll use the account info on the front of your check to undertake "demand debits" from your account, and backstop it with that recorded call.

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