Confessions of former debt collectors

Not all debt collectors are horrible people. It's a very, very hard job. I wasn't one of those collectors who yelled at people or got angry and mean, so I was happy with the results I got.

There's nothing in the law that says you can't raise your voice, so there were definitely people who would do that. And I do hear stories about collectors threatening violence and swearing, but at the company where I worked, we would have been shown the door if we said anything worse than "darn it."

But the debtors -- that's another story. Many of them would tear us apart over the phone, and you weren't allowed to ever hang up. I can't even repeat the things people said to me, but they were the meanest, most randomly strewn together vulgarities.

Other times, people would actually threaten me, saying, "I'll come find where you work and beat the stuffing out of you!"

But I learned not to take these things personally -- I knew their frustration was never at me as a person, it was at the company.

So overall, my experience as a debt collector was pretty positive. At a certain point though, the tedium did get to me and I decided to leave behind the whole "give me your money, give me your money" aspect in order to become a credit counselor and do a little more good for people.

NEXT: Jeffrey Deutsch