Debt... We All Have to Deal With It!

As most every 20 something out of school knows, you graduate with an insane amount of debt.  Sometimes it's manageable, sometimes it's not.  Like many others in my situation, my debt load has been a burden for some time, but slowly and surely I am paying it off, just like any honest, hard-working person tries to do.  Yes, there's been some financial ups and downs, as well as some naive stupidity with credit cards, but never once have I said that I wasn't going to pay my debts. I'm not a bad person, I just had debt that I wasn't good at dealing with while I was a student.  Lesson learned, and I'm paying for it.

Fast forward to this morning, where I wake up to a message on my answering machine from a collections agency I've been "working" with to get a very minor debt from my afforementioned naivete cleared up.  Mr. Collections Agent leaves me this long winded and haughty "you're not keeping up with your end of the deal" kind of message, and all I see is RED!  

Excuse me?!?  Hell no, he didn't just say that!  

What it boils down to is that Mr. Collections Agent is accusing me of dishonesty and failure to keep my end of the agreement we had.  I then get threatened that they will re-neg the arrangements made a few months ago if there's no payment by Mondy.  To clarify, the arrangements were that a payment would be made via online banking, the first Friday (pay) of each month.  It's nice and easy do this, because it's just like paying any other bill online.  I monitor my account very closely, and make sure there's always enough for the payment to go through.  Sure enough, I check my account, and the payment was processed yesterday, EXACTLY as per my agreement with Mr. Collections Agent.

Typically I would just call back and be polite about the misunderstanding; however, this time due to the nature of the message left for me, I kinda lost it.  When I feel like I'm being bullied and backed into a corner being blamed for something that's untrue, I really get upset.  Fuelled by my anger and righteousness over my payments being made on time, I called back.  Unfortunately I got voicemail, but that didn't deter me from saying exactly what I wanted to say.  

Mr. Collections Agent definitely got an earful from me on his voicemail.  I clearly stated that as per our agreement, payment was made (yesterday) on the first Friday of the month, and that this agreement was made while I was at work, and my co-workers heard me state the terms of payment that I could adhere to.  I provided the transaction number for yesterday's payment, and then said that since I'm adhering to my end of the agreement, it's bullshit that I'm being contacted for breaking the agreement.  Also, I threatened to sue for harrassment, should I receive any further calls about not living up to my end of the agreement.  I ended with "have a pleasant day"... which was said with a tinge of sarcasm, but that'll probably go unheard.  

I truly don't like to swear at people who are just doing their job, but after listening to that message and also recounting my past dealings with this "lovely" person, I was beyond pissed off.

I can't wait to be rid of this account so I can focus on more important things and not waste my energy on dealing with Mr. Collections Agent ever again.