Friday, October 30, 2009

The Dreadful Bill Collector – How to Handle Them: Million Dollar Journey


The Dreadful Bill Collector – How to Handle Them: Million Dollar Journey

Posted: 29 Oct 2009 03:30 AM PDT
Nobody wants pick up the phone and hear a bill collector on the other side, but it happens. We overextend ourselves, buy things we can not afford, fall ill, lose jobs or some other emergencies arises and we start missing payments which eventually reaches a collection agency. Dealing with collection agencies is not always the first choice or a pleasant encounter; collection agents have a reputation of being rude, vulgar and harassing.
For a short while after graduating from University I worked at a collection agency. It was not a lot of fun when I was told by supervisors and trainers to be harsher on customers and threaten them as needed. Not surprisingly I left the agency fairly quickly, but I learned a lot from the inside. I learned the laws as well as how agents manipulate these laws.
Should a situation arise where you have to deal with a collection agency I hope the following tips can help you through this awful experience.

Educate Yourself

The first thing you need to do is educate yourself. What can a collection agent say or do? When can they call? What are your obligations? Understand your rights as well as your responsibilities.
In Canada collection agencies are regulated by provinces, although most have similar laws, some details will vary. Here is the collection agency act for Ontario. In the US they have the Fair Debt Collections And Practices Act.

Do Not Ignore

If the unfortunate happens and you do end up having an account in collections, do not ignore the calls and letters. Ignoring the issue will not get you anywhere, talk with the agent and try to find an appropriate solution for your financial problems. If it’s in 3rd party collection, the agent will have some discretion over the account.

Keep Record

Keep a record of everything you do and every conversation you have with the collection agency. If you mail a letter ensure it is registered and always ask them to send you everything in writing. Have phone conversations recorded, although you may need permission for this, it can go a long way when needed. Always ask for the persons full name and ID number, write down the time and date of the call.

What Collection Agencies CANNOT Do

Here are a few things the collection agency cannot do:
  • A collection agency may NOT contact you until six days after they have sent you a written notice. The notice should include all the following information: The name of the ORIGINAL creditor, the balance owing and the name of the collection agency.
  • They cannot contact you before 8am and after 9pm during the week and before 1pm and after 5pm on Sundays.
  • They cannot contact you more than 3 times in a seven-day period regarding the same debt.
  • Disclose any information to anyone else but you, they cannot say it is a collection agency calling or in anyway reveal that you owe money. This also applies to voicemails; they cannot reveal any details on a voicemail.
  • If you feel that the agency has violated any of the above rules or in anyway has harassed you record the date, time and details of the event and contact your consumer protection agency.
When speaking with a collections agent be professional and try to solve the issue rather than trying to avoid it or get in a fight.  Remember they are just doing a job.
Once an account is with a collection agency you can no longer solve the matter with the original creditor so do not try to contact them. You will only give yourself more headache and create confusion.
This is a guest article by Ray, the owner and primary author of Financial Highway, where he discusses investing, saving and practical money management concepts. You can check subscribe to his RSS feed or follow him on Twitter.
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Normal is Broke

Living With A Chain

How to Get a Job when No One is Hiring

When the jobs are hidden

To get a job, you have to find the openings that no one's advertising, and really impress your potential employer.

By Jia Lynn Yang, writer-reporter
March 30, 2009: 12:31 PM ET

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- David Perry, a longtime headhunter, says you're wasting your time if you're looking for job postings online. And he should know: he's often the guy on the other side helping companies lure new talent. Perry, who's based in Ottawa, says that in the last 22 years he has accomplished 996 searches totaling $172 million in salary. And the bottom line in today's economy, he says, is you have to tap the "hidden job market."

Perry's also the co-author of "Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters" and he recently spoke with Fortune.

What's the "hidden job market"?

When companies say, 'We have a hiring freeze,' that doesn't mean they're not hiring. It just means they're not adding headcount. Every year there's 20-25% turn over. So in a 1,000-person company, 200 or 250 people are going to turn over, either through attrition, or someone moves. Those companies are still hiring but they don't want to tell you.

So how do you find these jobs?

What you have to do in a recession is map your skills to employers to where you know they have a problem you can solve. My advice to job hunters is pick 10 to 20 companies, no more, and pick companies you're interested in, and that you think you can add value to. That requires researching companies, and so that list may take you two weeks. If you're trying to crack the hidden job market and you know the job position you want reports to vice president, find that vice president on LinkedIn and look at his profile to see who else he's connected to and go ask them, 'What's this guy like to work for?' Do the research before you even pick up the phone.

How can you get someone's attention?

We can go into billboards, sandwiches - that stuff only works once. It's only for one person who figures it out once, once in a city. If you're looking for fun stuff, we have this thing called the coffee cup caper, 30% of the time it will result in an interview. You send an employer a coffee cup with a little $5 swipe card with a little note that says, I'd like to get together and talk with you over coffee. I'll be calling soon. And you send it by U.S. post two day delivery, and that gets registered. So when they've signed for it, you wait about 20 minutes and then you call them. And then you go, Hi, I know you just got my package.' You're proving you're imaginative and creative.

What something people should avoid during a job interview?

This drives me insane: I've seen people mentally deciding in the interview whether they want the job. That's the last place to decide. You go into an interview, and you sell like your life depends on it. You've got to get the job first. I've seen it thousands of times. There's this point in the interview, where people go 'Hmm, do I really want this? You can see their body change. The employer picks it up and it's gone. If the employer is telling you, 'I love you,' and you're not saying 'I love you too,' it's over with.

How about following up afterwards?

If you really like the opportunity, don't go home and write thank you very much. Go back and write a letter that says, upon further reflection of what we were talking about, here's what I bring to the table, here's how I see myself fitting into the organization, including a 30-60-90 day plan.

How can someone attract a recruiter's attention?

You have to go to ZoomInfo and LinkedIn and create a profile. All corporate recruiters and probably 20% of the headhunters in America have ZoomInfo accounts. When we start a search, companies aren't going to advertise. The headhunter goes to ZoomInfo, types in requirements that we need, like skillset, degree, city, functional title, and up will come anywhere from a hundred to several thousand people who fit that criteria. Then we go to LinkedIn and run the same search. If you're in ZoomInfo with a picture, we're going to call you first. Just reverse engineer what recruiters are doing so you get found.

How can you really impress a potential employer?

It hasn't worked in years just to bring in your resume, except only in the most junior positions. I concentrate on directors to CEOs, and the last interview for us regardless is always a Power Point presentation of what you've learned, pain points, and how you intend to fix that. Everyone talks about being a great leader and great communicator, so prove it. Don't go into an interview and treat it like it's just another business meeting. Your career is your biggest asset now - because it's certainly not your house. To top of page

From
http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/30/news/economy/yang_headhunter.fortune/index.htm

August 2008 Dave Ramsey on Barack Obama

This was aired in August 2008. So was Dave right???