Posted on 09/21/2009 5:14:23 PM PDT by Orange1998
ISLAMABAD — It's 8 o'clock on a Sunday night in the Pakistani capital, but collection cowboy Sharoon Hermoon is living on U.S. time. Headset in place, feet on his desk, he aims his speed dialer at a debtor in Fort Worth.
"Hello, ma'am, how ya doin' today?" he says in a convincing American accent. "My name is James Harold, and you owe us $11,000."
There's a deer-in-the-headlights moment at the other end, a deep breath, a torrent of excuses.
"I don't know what you're talking about," she says. "It's someone else. My husband's identity was stolen."
After several minutes of runaround, Hermoon hands the phone to Kashif Siddiqui, his supervisor at the Touchstone call center. With years of experience, Siddiqui has heard it all. He's not abusive, but within seconds, he sharply ramps up the pressure.
"So, your identity was stolen?" Siddiqui says. "I'll need a police report showing that. And a notarized statement that you never took out the loan. Yes, notarized. We can ring the police station right now on a conference call."
Click.
As Americans struggle under a mountain of debt, they might be surprised to learn that their debt collectors' calls might originate from a nation better known for instability and extremism. With more economic uncertainty, job losses and mortgage defaults expected in the U.S., long-distance arm-twisting has become a growth industry in Pakistan.
Though the mostly 20-something crew at the Islamabad call center expresses empathy for the troubled voices on the other end of the line, some of them also wonder how the Americans could let themselves slip so far under water.
"Americans are rather addicted to their credit cards," Siddiqui says.
After the woman from Fort Worth slams down the phone, the Touchstone crew goes to work. Predictably, she doesn't answer their return calls. So in subsequent days they use tracking software and loan document details to generate letters and leave phone messages with neighbors, co-workers and relatives that they're trying to reach her. Finally, a few weeks later, worn down, the woman accepts a repayment plan.
"The debt is like a lizard on your back," says Tabinda Batool, 33, a member of the crew.
Pakistan's call center business is a fraction of the size of neighboring India's; many huge U.S. companies have ruled out doing business with Pakistan on security grounds. But Pakistani companies argue that they offer better customer service and that their citizens have "more neutral accents" than Indians do.
Most of Touchstone's 350 "seats" — industry-speak for operators — handle customer service queries or make sales pitches for cable TV contracts, work that demands patience, a thick skin and politeness.
Siddiqui's dozen or so workers on the deadbeat beat, however, are another breed. Where others read a monotonous sales script, they match their wits against evasive debtors.
"It suits my personality," says Murad Khalique, 20.
Touchstone, the Pakistani branch of a company based in Dallas, duns debtors on behalf of consumer finance companies. It also buys some consumer loans at a discount and keeps whatever it can collect.
When the phone jockeys first call, the debtors' response tends to be shock and denial. If they're too cooperative, rattle off well-prepared answers and offer to pay everything, they're probably pros out to game the system.
Information is power in the battle. "We have dates, the amount they spent, how much they're earning," says Raja Amir Mehboob, manager of operations and business development with InfoSpan Pakistan, another Islamabad call center. "We can say, 'You did this, this and this, and here are the bills with your signature.' "
Some debtors pretend they don't speak English, garbling "Habla español" so badly it sounds like they're talking about a spaniel. Some of the Pakistani crew members who've lived in the U.S. can call their bluff by firing back a few Spanish phrases.
Once cornered, many debtors plead for leniency. The collectors do have some leeway to cut deals. Many of the people they're calling are scared, desperate and lonely. Some embrace the collectors as if they were a psychiatrist.
"We hear confessions all the time," says Ghulam Rabbani, an assistant Touchstone manager. "They start talking about family problems. The elderly talk about the son who doesn't visit. Especially after Hurricane Katrina, they just wanted to hear a voice."
The crew tries to be understanding, up to a point.
"If you start being too sympathetic, you can't do your job," says operator Shaleem Yaqoob, 22. "Mother Teresa couldn't do this work."
Workers say they hear the pain and fear of the Americans. But South Asians also say their culture tends to put greater weight on frugality.
"Here you save for a couple of years if you want something," says Siddiqui, who acknowledges he fell into an "instant gratification" mind-set during his 14 years in America. "In the U.S., it often looks like they want an easy lifestyle and don't want to work for it."
With Americans continuing to fall further into debt, prospects remain bright in Pakistan's telephone trenches.
"The collection business remains promising," says Mujeeb Zahur, Touchstone's general manager. "And the way things are going, there's always more to collect."
"The debt is like a lizard on your back," says Tabinda Batool, 33, a member of the crew.
Yes, there is always more to collect, but good luck getting it.
I know a lot of folks in collections.
The people who are not paying now have little to get.
No Jobs.
No Home Equity.
Lost money on the ira’s or 401ks.
Slamming down the phone is the wrong response.
From 15 USC 1692:
(c) Ceasing communication
If a consumer notifies a debt collector in writing that the consumer refuses to pay a debt or that the consumer wishes the debt collector to cease further communication with the consumer, the debt collector shall not communicate further with the consumer with respect to such debt, except—
If such notice from the consumer is made by mail, notification shall be complete upon receipt.
(The term "invoke specified remedies" refers to any actions ordinarily invoked by the bill collection agencies or creditors. Choices range from dropping, closing, selling, returning or transferring the account and can include seeking a court-ordered judgment.)
This doesn't excuse your debt! It simply stops the harassment. It also stops the harassment of neighbors, relatives, and co-workers. They are already treading on dangerous ground by doing this, because it's bordering on disclosure of information to a third party.
The call center may be in Pakistan, but it's being run by a US company. It doesn't excuse them from complying with the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
They better not be claiming the call is from a debt collector when they are talking to her neighbors, co-workers, and relatives or she can go after them to the tune of $2,500 per violation. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for paying your debts, but in most cases these debts have, long ago, been judged uncollectible by the original creditor and sold off to these debt collection outfits for pennies on the dollar.
Their is a guy that's on one of those radio financial shows by the name of Bud Hibbs that documents how many of these debt collectors are little more than fly by night organized crime outfits. He has a website www.budhibbs.com if you would like to see what I mean.
That’s very good information... thanks.
It certainly never stop them in the past. In practice they have no money to spare to fight it and a Jury will not be sympathetic. Its like breaking the law and then accuse the accuser of breaking another law.
You can sue them and try to collect damages, but at the very least, you can report them to the Federal Trade Commission, and optionally: the Attorney General in your state.
Both can (and have) take action against the collection agency "in the public interest".
So, what does one do when one has made all but one mortgage payment on time — and that missed payment was made up the next month (I pay the bills and I was hospitalized) — and the lender, who has now received copies of all canceled checks 8 times — still says one is in default? Pay big bucks to an attorney? They all want to file bankruptcy for us. Other than the mortgage, we have no debt.
Or how about things that don’t show on the credit report and somehow generate calls from “lenders”? 13 years after divorcing my *()&*(^&*^* ex-husband, I’m supposedly on the hook for thousands on a credit card that I didn’t sign for nor have I ever seen.
Mr. Lu and I have the mortgage only; we have a couple of store cards that we use now and again and pay when the bill comes.
I’m learning that since we live below our means, we are not Obama-Americans. What is to become of us?
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