If you’re in any kind of significant debt at all, you’ve no doubt had this experience one too many times already. You’re sitting down to eat dinner with your family, or else just trying to relax after a stressful day at work when, out of nowhere, the phone rings. You pick it up, and instead of the voice of a friend, it’s someone calling to harass you about the debt you owe. As if you didn’t know already!
As if you don’t think about it every single minute of the day! If left unchecked, this problem can grow to the point where you start to feel sick or panicked every time the phone rings. No one deserves to live that one, regardless of how much debt they owe. And with the rise in the number of debt collectors due to the recent credit crisis means that there are plently of companies willing to chase you.
If this describes your situation, what can you do about it? All too often, people’s first inclination is to just stop picking up the phone. These people are operating under the assumption that the person on the other end will eventually just “get tired of calling”. There’s a problem with this way of thinking, however. Add New Post ‹ TFGI — WordPress
The person calling you is very likely just an hourly employee, hired to call huge lists of people one by one in order to make arrangements to collect on debts owed to their employers. In other words, it’s nearly always someone different, and they call thousands of numbers a day, so nothing about your number in particular is going to stand out to them, whether you answer or not. Therefore, unless you address matters directly, your number will remain on these employee’s lists, and they’ll keep calling you.
The good news that you should keep in mind, however, is that if a company is making phone calls to you, it’s a good sign that they really want their money. Why is this a good thing? Well, it means that they will likely be responsive to negotiations.
If a company is making the effort to call you incessantly, they often want their money so badly, they’re willing to accept reduced lump-sum payments, or set up payment plans that will allow you to pay off your debt one small monthly payment at a time (without having to suffer the endless calls). What’s more – you can often stop interest from compounding on your accounts if you make such a deal. In the vast majority of circumstances, it’s always best to talk to the company rather than ignore them.
What happens if you do ignore the company? More often than not, things will get to the point where they’ll have no recourse left but to take legal action against you. If you’re trying to rebuild your credit, this is a horrible situation, because even after you pay the accounts off, court judgments remain on your credit report for as long as seven years.
Remember, part of becoming a responsible consumer and getting your way out of debt is to acknowledge the legitimacy of the debts you owe and become accountable for them. Ignoring your creditors is not the right way to go about doing this. Instead, you should always confront these problems head-on, and with honesty, resolving that, in the future, you’ll avoid the sorts of financial mistakes that bring this kind of situation about in the first place.
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