Archive for December, 2009

I accidentally answered the phone the other day and encountered the dreaded bill collector.

May I speak to Gerald?
There’s nobody here by that name.
May I speak to Debra?
This is she.
Oh, but you don’t know who Gerald is?
Yes I do but he’s not available at this number.
Do you know a number where he might be available?
Nope, we’ve been divorced for almost three years and I don’t have a number.

Blah blah blah, she exhausted every question possible about how to located him or if I knew where he was working or how much he made, etc. Then she started in on me and I gave her the barest minimum in responses.

(Here comes the good part.)

She: So after your necessary bills you have about $1000 left over a month so you could afford to make some sort of payment on this debt, right?
Me: Not really, I still have other bills and I do have to eat.
She: Well, what do you spend your money on? Cable TV and Internet? Eating out all the time? You could go with the basic plans and save money and stop going out and wasting money.
Me? Seriously? You’re suggesting I sit in the dark and eat Ramen so I can afford to make payments on a vehicle I no longer have? What kind of good-effort payments did you have in mind?
She: Even $25-50 a month would go a long way in clearing up your credit.
Me: DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW LONG IT WOULD TAKE TO PAY OFF $14,000 WITH $25 A MONTH PAYMENTS? I’d be dead of boredom and starvation long before the first grand was paid off. No thanks, my credit is so far down in the crapper that the world’s best plumber couldn’t dredge it up.
She: So I should just put you down as refusing to negotiate?

Duh.

My position on being a deadbeat: It’s the business or bank’s responsibility to NOT give me credit. If they’re careless enough to throw away their money, why is it my responsibility to give it back? And with interest? What a rip-off! I made enough car payments to pay off the actual price of that car. It’s not my fault they chose to apply my payments to their interest scam first, and then when the car exploded and got ran over and repossessed it wasn’t worth enough to get the rest of their money. Price of doing business, yo.

Now with people it’s different. I hand someone money and I never expect to get it back, then when I do it’s a bonus, right? If someone hands me money and it’s a loan, I pay them back as soon as possible. (Thanks Mom, did you get my check yet?) People are people and I don’t renege on people. Just businesses.

Anyway, I told her not to bother calling me when she got further down the list and found the loan on his truck that we defaulted on too. Let it go beyotch, we ain’t paying. Blood out of a turnip and all that.