Confessions of former debt collectors

When I started my own collection agency and we had our first big customer, I needed to hire 30 collectors. I posted one job opening and had 400 to 500 people apply. As soon as I told them we did drug screening and background checks, the pool went to less than a hundred people. This just shows how much the industry needs to change.

We had to put a lot of checks and balances in place and keep collector morale high to make sure no laws were violated and that standards were met. It's difficult to make 50 or 60 calls a day to people that don't want to hear from you -- so we had to try to keep the pressure off our collectors so that no one exploded over the phone with a debtor.

As the owner of the agency, I had to do a lot of debt collection myself, and it's so stressful when you're trying to collect money that people just don't have.

But it did feel good when you got to help people. You were talking to people with all this pressure on them from owing this debt and who felt like they were buried alive. So being able to successfully negotiate terms and relieve this stress and let them sleep at night was the most rewarding part of the job.

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