Collection Agencies

Collection Agencies, a lot of us have probably gotten those annoying calls and letters from them demanding payment at one time or another. You know, things get tight and you figure it can wait a while until you get on your feet and pay it off, then life happens and you forget about it.  Next  thing you know, the letters start followed by the phone calls.

A couple years  ago my son needed/wanted a cell phone so a friend of his put him on his plan as long as he kept up the payments.  Things were Ok for a while then the friend decided he didn't want the hassle of getting the notices if my son was late with a payment, so being the nice guy that I am, I took over the account with the stipulation that I would pay the bill for him with the money he gave me for that purpose.  That worked out fine until he decided to go visit an old girlfriend in Arizona for a month.  The month turned into 11 months and he stopped sending money for the bill and  stopped paying it on his own.  The account was cancelled, closed out and the letters started.  Now by this time, I had no idea where to send the checks since I couldn't access the online payment site anymore.  The letters began and they would find their way to  the circular file because I  made the presumption that  it was HIS responsibility to pay for HIS phone bill.  Yeah, stupid of me, I know.

Cut to December of last year. Got a phone call from a collection agency and after a round of heated discussion, I  figured that I could afford to make payments and set it up.  Here's the kicker.  The way the guy explained it to me, if I made the payments every  month for 6  months the debt  would be considered satisfied.   Guess what, it was a lie. Now, they want the rest of the money in full in one lump payment so they can close out the debt.  I'm on Disability and have a fixed income that barely covers my monthly expenses.  For the last 6 months I've had to go without my medications and food.  These bloodsuckers don't understand that, they just want the money, NOW!

At first, they said that if I  make payments for 4 months they would review the account again and call me to let me know if they were happy or not.  I asked him what the hell he was talking about.  I thought that the debt would be satisfied after this most recent payment, but NOOOOO,  I still owed another $420.00!!  He tried to convince me that if I  paid that amount today he could close it out.  Now I'm saddled with  paying this for another 6 months and THEN I won't hear from them ever again. AAAAARRRRRRRGGGGHHHHH!