I may have just made a creditor’s day.
Right now, I’m in a tricky situation. Since I own a small business, my bill payment schedule revolves entirely around the whims of my clients – do they want to hire me for a project or simply Do-It-Yourself, do they want to pay me on time or make me call them for the check, etc.
I’m in the awkward situation of being overdue on every single account I hold – minus rents, which I’m not late for YET. The way it works is, I pay the bills when my clients pay me, and as we’ve established in previous entries, that’s been a bit of an issue as of late.
A week ago I was put onto the dreaded “Call List,” the one where creditors call you every hour on the hour, and sometimes every half hour on the half hour. Tonight the phone rang at 7:30pm exactly, and instead of internally groaning and hitting the “off” button on my office phone (as per usual), I answered the phone and proceeded to have a radically honest conversation with the very nice girl Amy on the other end of the line.
Amy was so taken aback at my attitude, how positive I was, how I was in the process of applying for a loan so I can get things under control, and how matter-of-fact I was about the entire situation that the poor thing was actually stammering at times. It’s like she couldn’t believe that one of the deadbeats she was forced to call did any of the following:
A. Answer the phone in the first place (generally guilty)
B. Fail to call her anything with the term “Hussy” in it
C. Cuss her out
D. Blame her for getting my own damn self into debt
I daresay Amy was quite taken with me by the end of our conversation. Actual quote – “I just think it’s so great that you’re actually doing something to get yourself out of the situation, and you’ve got such a great attitude, and why don’t we push the paydate out a little further to give you some breathing room?”
And I thought to myself, “I’m the unrelenting optimist. I’m still a non-paying scumbag, and at least I’m cheerful about it.”
Because, life can really suck when it comes to details like money and “due dates,” and I’m glad that I let her hang the phone up with a smile and not a grimace.
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2 Responses to “I may have just made a creditor’s day”
I very much respect your posting about this topic, people are way too uptight about the topic of finances.
As a tax collector I’m lucky enough to have the taxpayers call me, so they’re not usually in as bad a mood, but I always do my best to give them whatever they’re asking for, as far as payment terms… it makes me feel good to help instead of taking that hard collection line like some of my coworkers… and it makes my day a lot easier when people thank me instead of cursing me out
I once made a creditor’s day as well. I had an account on my credit that was in “charge-off” status…which is very not good. Very long story, but it wasn’t actually my fault, beyond my being too nice to a family member and allowing them to get credit on a purchase in my name.
Anywho, collection agent calls me one day at work and instead of hanging up on him or getting angry, I said, “oh good, this has been screwing up my credit and I want to take care of it.” His reaction to that was to set up a settlement payment at HALF of what was actually owed to settle the entire amount. So yeah, sometimes just being straight with people you instinctually want to run and hide from actually works out.