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Transworld Systems Complaint - Transworld Systems Complaint - Debt Collection Agency
Debt Collection Agency - Complaint
SANTA ROSA -- Today I got a call from someone at Transworld Systems. They had been trying to reach me for a few weeks and I had been having a tough timing taking even personal/family calls because I had been so busy with a project. I have been working to dig out of a job loss back in 2007. With four little kids and a high unemployment rate in Florida, I have been working overtime to make things work.
The lady from Transworld seemed nice enough in her messages so I had saved her message to call her back as she seemed like maybe she was different--like she might actually want to talk and work something out with me (payment plan or whatever). But things changed radically as soon as she got me on the phone.
The first words she said were carefully worded to make me thing she was a lawyer or at least that this was a legal matter. She used words like "claim against you" and "legal matter" (or something very close to that) and other things that were open in meaning and could make me think maybe she was an attorney. So I simply asked her, "are you an attorney?"
That must be the not-so-magic word, because she started talking to me like I was her bad little four year old from that point on. "You don't ask the questions..." she says.
Literally, from that point, every time I said anything at all, she made it her business to cut me off. Every time! It was as if she was *trying* to enrage me as part of her plan somehow.
She went on and on about how I'm the bad guy for ever having a debt in the first place and what a bad guy I am, etc., etc. It was absolutely infuriating. Lots of negation of me (making less of me) as a person. No doubt this works for some people but it just makes me want to fight back.
If I said anything at all, she turned it around to make me look like a complete loser. And yet she knows nothing about me except that I was not returning her calls. But then she _got_ me on the phone (boy I'll never make that mistake again!). So you think she'd engage in a dialogue with me to _understand_ my situation and thus work out a way to collect in a way I can do. If I could "pay in full" (the "only acceptable respose" she says to me), I would have done it already! It's not like I'm talking to her from my suite at Disneyworld.
She didn't know that I had saved her message so I could call her back, or that I lost my job in '07 and have clawed my way back from unemployment to having to start my own business that is not making me rich yet, but is paying the basics like groceries, or that I refuse to file bankruptcy because it's my complete and full intention to pay all my debts in full. She doesn't know anything about me. She just assumed that I'm scum of the Earth for a)having a debt and b) not returning her initial calls (and I knew it was probably her when I picked up the call today because I manage my caller ID situation very well). The only answer she would accept is "here is payment in full."
Why would anyone ever want to speak to someone like that? And what's more, why incur legal fees and other expenses by extending the time it takes to get something done by actively enraging your callers? All people need is some common decency and respect and most of them would probably work something out.
Do the folks who run Transworld Systems not read the papers? 500,000 people a month have been losing their jobs for the last year and a half. I didn't stop paying my debts because I didn't want to. I stopped paying because I *couldn't* temporarily and because my children had to eat. And I *was* (contrary to the implication by the Transworld caller) taking calls from creditors and collectors, right up to the point where they started getting nasty.
Further, I settled a $30,000 credit card debt and have gotten other credit situations back on track with some payments. So my intentions and statistics show that I'm working things out with creditors. But I won't be spoken to this way by anyone regardless of their supposed justification for doing so.
Collectors like these folks base their whole operation on the idea that the only way is to beat money out of people. That they will just harass until you pay. They are just legalized mafia as far as I'm concernd--based on the way their people treat others.
The real travesty of it all is that I would probably have given her some money today. But I can't abide by people who knowingly mislead others treat others like dirt under their feet. It's just not right.
The lady from Transworld seemed nice enough in her messages so I had saved her message to call her back as she seemed like maybe she was different--like she might actually want to talk and work something out with me (payment plan or whatever). But things changed radically as soon as she got me on the phone.
The first words she said were carefully worded to make me thing she was a lawyer or at least that this was a legal matter. She used words like "claim against you" and "legal matter" (or something very close to that) and other things that were open in meaning and could make me think maybe she was an attorney. So I simply asked her, "are you an attorney?"
That must be the not-so-magic word, because she started talking to me like I was her bad little four year old from that point on. "You don't ask the questions..." she says.
Literally, from that point, every time I said anything at all, she made it her business to cut me off. Every time! It was as if she was *trying* to enrage me as part of her plan somehow.
She went on and on about how I'm the bad guy for ever having a debt in the first place and what a bad guy I am, etc., etc. It was absolutely infuriating. Lots of negation of me (making less of me) as a person. No doubt this works for some people but it just makes me want to fight back.
If I said anything at all, she turned it around to make me look like a complete loser. And yet she knows nothing about me except that I was not returning her calls. But then she _got_ me on the phone (boy I'll never make that mistake again!). So you think she'd engage in a dialogue with me to _understand_ my situation and thus work out a way to collect in a way I can do. If I could "pay in full" (the "only acceptable respose" she says to me), I would have done it already! It's not like I'm talking to her from my suite at Disneyworld.
She didn't know that I had saved her message so I could call her back, or that I lost my job in '07 and have clawed my way back from unemployment to having to start my own business that is not making me rich yet, but is paying the basics like groceries, or that I refuse to file bankruptcy because it's my complete and full intention to pay all my debts in full. She doesn't know anything about me. She just assumed that I'm scum of the Earth for a)having a debt and b) not returning her initial calls (and I knew it was probably her when I picked up the call today because I manage my caller ID situation very well). The only answer she would accept is "here is payment in full."
Why would anyone ever want to speak to someone like that? And what's more, why incur legal fees and other expenses by extending the time it takes to get something done by actively enraging your callers? All people need is some common decency and respect and most of them would probably work something out.
Do the folks who run Transworld Systems not read the papers? 500,000 people a month have been losing their jobs for the last year and a half. I didn't stop paying my debts because I didn't want to. I stopped paying because I *couldn't* temporarily and because my children had to eat. And I *was* (contrary to the implication by the Transworld caller) taking calls from creditors and collectors, right up to the point where they started getting nasty.
Further, I settled a $30,000 credit card debt and have gotten other credit situations back on track with some payments. So my intentions and statistics show that I'm working things out with creditors. But I won't be spoken to this way by anyone regardless of their supposed justification for doing so.
Collectors like these folks base their whole operation on the idea that the only way is to beat money out of people. That they will just harass until you pay. They are just legalized mafia as far as I'm concernd--based on the way their people treat others.
The real travesty of it all is that I would probably have given her some money today. But I can't abide by people who knowingly mislead others treat others like dirt under their feet. It's just not right.
Comments:
Posted by PassingBy on 2009-08-10:
Congratulations for taking a stand against those idiots. I also congratulate you for getting back on your feet and paying off old debts. Did that person ever tell you the source of the debt? Lots of these agencies purchase old debt and never bother to see if they were ever paid off or written off. You could have been called about a debt already settled.
Posted by Diabolical on 2009-09-13:
Good for you! Don't let their words get to you. In one way, debt is just a number (a very serious and crippling number, but still, a number). Clearly, you are a very capable and strong person judging from your triumphs and achievements. You know who you are. That's all that matters!
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