What to do with Debt Collectors

There is an African wise saying that I found on the web. It said,

To borrow is a wedding, to pay back a funeral.

For those who have gone through tough financial times, we know that debt is what kills us. In fact, if you really think about it, it is not losing the job that is weight on our shoulders, but the thought of who is going to pay the bills.

Someone can survive without a job. With the weekly unemployment check, you can do a little financial engineering to feed us and give us a roof over our heads for sometime. However, any debt we have can be too much for us to bear.

I remember my friend Bobby who for sometime was living a miserable life. He got very sick and his health insurance decided not to pay for his bills since he had the dreaded “pre-existing condition”.

As luck would have it, he started to get calls and letters from the hospital. The electricity company, the department store and the credit card company were not left behind. In a period of four weeks, sweet calls reminding him of his bill, hostile calls and dire warning letters about the debt he owed inundated him.

The companies were coming for anything he had, the only thing they would leave for him were his children and even they had been taken by his wife due to a divorce settlement.

So exactly what can one do about debt collectors? What are your rights and responsibilities when debt collectors call? What can you do to reduce the calls?

We shall continue with these questions over this week.