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Creditor Calls
While in our debt settlement program, you may receive creditor calls. The highest volume of calls is usually in the first few months of the program. The Debt Solution cannot keep creditors from contacting you by phone or by mail. However, there are several actions that can reduce the amount of calls and letters you receive. When you do your part and we do ours, harassment by creditors and debt collectors can be kept to a minimum.
Notice to Creditors
We will send notices to your creditors explaining that you are in our program and how we work. However there is a catch to this step - we cannot send these notices out until we have received your completed Power of Attorney form(s) and copies of the creditor statements for all accounts you enroll in our program. Completed means we have a Power of Attorney form for you and any "co-makers" or "co-signers" on your accounts, signed by that person and either witnessed by two adults who are not relatives or notarized. If we do not receive these forms or if we receive them incomplete, we cannot contact your creditors on your behalf. This is very important for you to understand.
You can see whether or not we have sent out notices to your creditors on the client website. Log in and click on the "Client Services" link. When you do several other menu items will appear below "Client Services". Click on "Account Activity" (for web version - make this a link). When you do, you'll see a listing of the actions taken on your accounts over the last 30 days. You will see an entry like the one below for each creditor you have when we have sent our initial notification to your creditors:
7/31/2003
11:20:23 AM | System |
Celina Arguello | Creditor Information Letter sent to Sure Finance on 7/31/2003 |
We rarely communicate to collectors verbally between the time we send them the notification you're in our program and the time we begin discussing settlements. There are good reasons for this. In our experience it has little effect on whether or not you will also be called by aggressive collectors. We at one time had several staff dedicated to trying to field all creditor calls and trying to get them to stop calling our clients. It didn't work. We found that when one of your accounts gets to a particularly aggressive collector in your creditors' collection department they will constantly call you and they will constantly call us and they won't stop no matter what we say or do unless they get the payment they're seeking. Since we're not going to make monthly payments to them we have found the best tactic to take is to have a recorded message for them to listen to that tells them how we work and how to make a settlement offer. That is what the creditors now hear when they call the number in our letter or that you will give them when they call you.
It does NOT help you get your accounts settled faster or for less money if you or we try to talk to all the collectors who are trying to collect on your debt. The only thing we will accomplish by attempting to talk to all of these people is wasting your time, our time and the collectors' time resulting in some degree of upset for all concerned. That's all. Below you will find several steps you can take to reduce or eliminate creditor calls and to avoid getting upset by collectors who will say or do just about anything to get you to pay.
Getting the Creditors to Stop Calling
There are some steps that the client can take to get the creditors to stop calling.
You should use the following script whenever a creditor calls concerning an account you have given to The Debt Solution. You must follow the script exactly. If you do so over and over again, the creditors will get the message - eventually. They will see that calling you will do them no good and that they will need to deal directly with us.
Client: Hello
Creditor: I need to speak to Mr. or Mrs. _______________ concerning this overdue amount!!!!
Client: Please call The Debt Solution at (661) 257-9755. Thanks for calling. (Hang up the phone at this point.)
IMPORTANT!! Do not engage in other conversations with the callers! Do not answer any other questions. Do not get upset. Always be friendly. Stick exactly to the script.
What You Can Expect From Creditors
One of the biggest concerns new clients have is creditor calls. Therefore I want to give you a better understanding about why the creditors say what they say and how to deal with them.
The first few months of this program are the roughest for you since calls can come in to you from the creditors in a heavy manner. We are going to help you solve this problem.
First, some of the things that we hear are routinely said by the creditors include:
- We have never heard from The Debt Solution
- They have not sent us any proposal, or we have not received any proposal.
- We do not deal with a 3rd party company
- We do not deal with that type of company
- We do not deal with a company that does debt consolidation or debt reduction
- We have not received a payment from them
- You are getting ripped off by us because they (the creditors) are not being paid and we are not helping you.
- We never return their calls
There are other such statements that creditors make which are basically variations of the above.
These statements are not new to us. In fact, we have been hearing these things from our clients for years.
These statements from the creditors raise questions from you like:
- Why haven't you contacted my creditors?
- Why are they calling me?
- They said they don't deal with your type of company, what am I going to do now?
- Why haven't you paid the creditors?
There are other concerns you may have as a result of what the creditors may tell you or have told you.
Here are the answers to those concerns:
- What the creditors are telling you is routine and basically not true. They have said these things since our business began. It is no different now, years later.
- We do contact ALL of your creditors. This is done as soon as we have your Power of Attorney.
- It often takes 2 to 4 weeks for the creditors to enter in the information that you are working through our company into their computers. During that time callers will not be able to tell we have sent the paperwork even though it was sent.
- Many creditors think, automatically, that The Debt Solution is a debt consolidation or credit counseling company. WE ARE NOT. They think they are going to get a monthly payment from us. THEY WILL NOT. A debt consolidation company reduces the interest rate of your credit cards. We reduce the total amount of debt that you owe. There is a big difference between the 2 types of companies. This point is covered in the documents you sign when you enroll in our program.
- Because the creditors think we are a debt consolidation company, they may be waiting for a proposal from us as to interest rates and monthly payments. They may also be waiting for monthly payments to them. We do not send them proposals, nor do we send them monthly payments. We negotiate your debt with one creditor at a time and settle with one creditor at a time.
- Creditors are trying to get you to work with them. Unfortunately there are debt consolidation companies that have taken people's money and never paid the creditors. Therefore some creditors try to go around the companies and get consumers paying them directly. We are not that type of company.
- Realize that the job of the collector is to get a payment from you. These people are often paid commissions or bonuses on how much money they collect. Some of them will say or do ANYTHING to get you to pay, even outright lies. Here are two of the most outrageous lies told to our clients by creditors:
- "We spoke to The Debt Solution and they said they've never heard of you." (Note - This was said to a client who also happened to be an employee!)
- "We spoke to ________ and he said you are no longer on their program." (In one instance they actually managed to get the name of someone in our Information Technology department and used that person's name when making this statement)
Most of the kinds of statements we mention here stem mainly from not understanding what we do, or slowness in their administrative lines. If you start talking to them more than the script, they can tell you more nonsense and create a rift between you and us. Don't talk to them, just use the script. This is what it was designed for. If you keep repeating the same message to them over and over, they will stop. This has happened time and again.
- Handling the creditors requires TEAM WORK between you and us. USE THE SCRIPT and do not talk to the creditors. Just follow the script and hang up. We will make sure we get our notifications out and respond to any inquiries we receive from your creditors.
- We are use to what each of these creditors do, and for you, it is a new experience. I want you to know that we get people out of debt for real. We have success stories of real people getting out of debt. Stick with the program and you too will become one of those people.
They may say that they are going to sue you if you don't make a payment. Understand that these actions are part of the collection process. Threatening lawsuit is a way of intimidating you into paying. Few creditors carry out that threat. There are some who do sue. While they are by far the minority, you need to know what happens in this case.
We settle those accounts. That's right. Even when a creditor sues, we settle the accounts. You must use the script and know that no matter what threats the creditor makes or what they do, we will eventually reach a settlement with them.
You have rights as a debtor. You can read all about your rights at: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/fdc.htm. Please read them so you understand them. It is important for you.
If you have any questions about what is written there, please contact us and we will be glad to help you out.
Remember, we have to be a team in order to handle the creditors. Once we have enough funds for the settlement, we would contact them again and negotiate the best settlement possible.
We know what they are doing and want to make sure you understand what they are doing too.
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