In May 2020, I was caught up in the bombardment of online loan collections.
Every day I woke up to a barrage of debt collection texts on my phone, for which I had already pulled several numbers, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before a new one found me.
Under fire, I searched the internet for what to do about these debit and credit problems. After a few searches, I couldn’t find a suitable method, but I accidentally found a job posting in a group – recruiting for the very people we debtors call “dog callers.
The dog collector is what debtors call a debt collector.
When I saw this message, I was ready to give it a try.
For these dog call, I am very familiar with the debt collection words I have long been familiar with, “your arrears have been overdue, please contact before five o’clock in the afternoon, otherwise we will be transferred to the judicial organs to deal with.” “If you do not pay the debt by XX days, we will prosecute you.”
With apprehension, I dialed the recruitment number, and after a few words, the other party directly asked me to report to the company, and for my own overdue debts, he smiled and said, “Now that the epidemic is serious and you can’t pay back the money you owe, why not work for our company and maybe ask for a sum of money back, and there is hope that your debt will be paid.”
Because of the epidemic, many employees of the company could not arrive at work normally. The epidemic has also made many creditors crazy, if the people who owe money can’t pay, their lives are in trouble, so the business of such debt collection companies has become surprisingly busy for a while.
The business of these debt collection companies has become surprisingly busy for a while, and there are few people like me who are unable to find a job because they can’t pay back the money and become a “dog caller”. The good thing is that the company is in our local area, and after submitting my medical report, I was able to enter the company without any problems.
Although it is called a collection agency, most of these companies are called “XXX Credit Management Company”. The company I joined has been operating for almost 8 years, and its business also covers most credit channels, including the credit card collection business; the company takes a percentage, and the percentage is particularly high for some of the bills that are owed for a huge amount of money and a long time.
The office of this company is not large, but each person is separated by a small partition, just like a separate world. When I entered, a number of collectors were making phone calls in an exuberant mood.
I was assigned to a supervisor surnamed Wang, who led me to a separate office and introduced me to the basic situation of the company.
Since the country has been fighting crime, collection agencies have become a key target of care, as this kind of work used to be almost inseparable from the triads. But now these companies are basically going formalized, more than 90% of the work is done by online collectors, leaving only one offline collection department. “Offline collection will not happen until that step of last resort.” Supervisor Wang explained with a smile.
“For most people, if relatives and friends know about it, then his life is over.” When I heard this, I couldn’t help but sweat for myself.
After a few days of training, I officially became a collection agent. The company strictly prohibits the use of one’s cell phone during work, and all employees’ cell phones are locked in a cabinet. I was assigned to the “Alipay Flower Debt Collection Department”, which is mainly responsible for debtors with overdue Flower Debt.
Supervisor Wang quickly gave me a list of debtors who owed less than 5,000 RMB. Most of these debtors could not be reached by phone, but because the amount owed was small, the company was not willing to expend too much effort, so they were given to us newcomers to practice.
I made several consecutive calls to the first list and finally got through on the eighth call. The person who answered the phone was an elderly person who told me that she couldn’t use a smart phone and had never heard of any spendthrift. She told me that she didn’t know how to use a smartphone and had never heard of a flower.
I guessed that her son had used this number to open the account. Before I could finish my sentence, the caller hung up.
I asked one of the collectors in the same group who had been working for two years, what if these people really didn’t pay, and he gave me an ambiguous answer, “As long as we can get through, sooner or later there will be a way to make him pay, but if we can’t, we will call the phone number in the address book.”
This means to explode the address book. Since the 2019 315 evening exposed the chaos of the collection industry, the company to avoid becoming typical in the limelight, collection practices softened a lot, generally will not affect the social relations of the collector, but last year this wind past, some really do not pay back the debtors, collectors can only constantly harass the other party left address book contacts, until the person to pay.
Two
The list of debtors with less than 5,000 yuan on hand, after I called all of them, few of them got through, and my colleagues in the same group told me, “This situation is too common , most debtors will pull our phone numbers, and it will be good to change a few more phones to fight.”
According to the different levels of collectors and the employees’ own working ability, the company will assign us different tasks and stipulate that we must make a certain number of calls every day. Of course these business volumes are linked to our wages, and the more different levels of collectors, the greater the wage gap. The most important thing is that you can get a good idea of the amount of money you need to spend on your business.
When I heard about the high commission, I felt that I was saved from my debts.
After the rookie period, I got the second list of people who owed between 20,000 and 50,000, with each person’s name and job marked on the file, as well as some background checks. According to each person’s arrears, overdue date and amount, the company sorted the cases in each file from largest to smallest, and some would be followed by a special note of “focus”, meaning that the person should be focused on; some were labeled “student”, meaning that the person The arrears repayment ability is strong, because school students usually to the end, parents will help to pay back; some marked with “low literacy”, meaning that we can use some words to deter when collecting, such as “on the credit, included in the list of defaulters executive, can not take the plane high-speed rail, will affect children’s schooling ……”
I took a quick glance at the list and found that young people accounted for almost 80% or more, and a number of them were college students who had just graduated not two years ago.
Next, it’s time to start a new job.
The first girl, in her twenties, she already owed $50,000.
“Do not call me again, I have no money, this year, go south to make money.” Her voice on the other end of the line was very tired and she cried, “I beg you not to call me anymore, I have money to pay for sure.”
“I can’t even afford to pay the rent in Beijing,” she said she would pay back the money as soon as she earned it, and would never borrow again. My heart softened as I remembered my own arrears and felt some sympathy, but I asked, “Can your parents help you repay this arrears?”
After hearing “parents”, her voice on the other end of the phone instantly became hysterical, “I told you, I will pay this money back myself, you do not call my parents, or I will die!”
A chill ran down my back. Generally, if you can contact the debtor, you will not harass a third party to collect. But according to this girl’s past collection records, the company’s collectors had called her 48 times.
I can probably piece together the circumstances of her debt.
In 2016, she graduated from college, and campus loans were in a frenzied stage, as her neighboring students were preparing for their graduation trips after graduation.
Soon, the high interest rate forced her to borrow various campus loans. Later, the state cracked down on campus loans, these arrears to let her breathe a sigh of relief, but after graduation salary more than 3,000, and let her start online loans.
The girl’s message was deliberately marked with the word “co- debt”.
The common debt means that she borrowed from several platforms at the same time, tearing down the east wall to make up for the west wall, which eventually led to several platforms all overdue and the wall collapsing. My colleague told me that people with a high level of education and knowledge of the law like this, general words don’t do much good, especially if there is a case of co-debt, and they know these things well.
Debtors like this are the biggest headaches for companies.
Of course, it is also the biggest headache for debt collectors, the means of legal call (using legal means including credit, inclusion in the defaulters) does not have much effect on such people, while the love call (to family, friends notice) often causes complaints from debtors, but makes the platform accountable to the company, in the end, the penalty is still us collectors.
Three
I look carefully at the list in my hand, the most debt is from young people “overspending”, since the opening of Alipay chanting and borrowing, young people’s debts rise, and after tasting the sweetness of loans, they become more uncontrollable and start all kinds of online loans as a way to support high consumption.
Almost all of these people have co-debts, and many are simply unable to repay.
In that list, there is a particularly representative character.
Her notes read, “Debtor is suicidal”.
When I called her phone, she was very emotional and told me that she would jump off a building if I called her again. When her mood stabilized a bit, I asked her, “Can you still pay this money?”
She sighed and said, “I can’t pay it back, except for my credit card and debit card, all my bank cards and online loans have been frozen, so I can’t get any money out. My circle of friends is already stinking!” She nearly collapsed: “If you want to sue, go ahead and sue, I’m not afraid of anything anyway!”
Faced with such a cry, I had no reason to press further.
For several days after that, I called one after another according to the phone numbers on the list, but almost none of them got through. In fact, in the collection system, more than 90% of the calls could not be answered at all. I had to use the company’s WeChat application to start contacting the debtor again. My colleagues were so used to this situation that most of the time we were doing one thing, trying to find the debtor.
After a few more days, I finally added that suicidal case debtor’s WeChat, and the first thing she said when she opened her mouth was, “Brother, I recently bought a new Apple 11PRO.
I wanted to know what she had done with all the money she had spent, and her profile showed that she owed close to 300,000 on various platforms. Instead, she asked me in return, “I told you, can you guys not call every day?”
I agreed to come down, at least there was room for communication.
For debtors who are extremely unstable, the company can only adopt a policy of tenderness, in case they really force something out, it will be a problem.
The girl calmly said that three years ago, she looked at a bag, need 8000 pieces, on Taobao to do installment payments, twelve installments, quickly got the bag, she thought it was all too easy.
From then on, she opened various white strips, credit cards, and began to buy those luxury goods like crazy, and at that time on various lending platforms, the total amount of money she could borrow, finally approaching 500,000.
Seeing so much money borrowed into her hands, she actually dove into the stock market and funds, superstitious online so-called “money to make money” method, but almost no financial knowledge, she soon lost it all.
At first, she was able to tear down the east wall to mend the west wall, until all the lending platform repayments were due behind. Her address book was blown up, everyone around her knew about it, and at a young age, she was heavily in debt.
“So what are you going to do from now on?”
She quickly returned the message: “People like us, there is no future, this is the life.”
“Then you have not thought about what about your family?”
This time it took her a while to get back to me: “I bought an insurance policy that pays out about 500,000, and as soon as the two-year waiting period for suicide is over and I’m done with myself, my parents will get that compensation.”
“By then, the money from the online loan and the money from friends will be paid off, and Mom and Dad will have a little bit of retirement money.”
I originally thought that the suicidal tendency written on her profile was that she couldn’t stand the pressure of borrowing money and was emotionally unstable, but I didn’t expect that she had made a thorough plan and wanted to “get off” in this way.
As a debt collector, I couldn’t say anything, all the words didn’t help, and now she was just short of money. Then the bill was never transferred to me again, and I don’t know what happened to her afterwards.
Four
The Internet Finance Association has a rule that collectors should not make more than three collection calls in a day when collecting loans, but many borrowers cannot get through at all and have to change their numbers several times to call.
Some collectors, under pressure to perform, can only reach borrowers through their address book. However, according to the regulations, we are not allowed to contact third parties in the address book to collect money, and for this reason many colleagues have received complaints that borrowers will use this as a reason to refuse to pay.
“In fact, I really did not call his address book,” colleagues said about this will be very helpless. This kind of thing is very likely to be done by other platforms. Online lenders will commission multiple collection agencies, and some will consider the regulations, but behind the scenes many companies will cross that line.
In November, the eggshell apartment capital chain broke and countless tenants were evicted by their landlords, resulting in a large number of overdue loans. in December, the company put out a notice to stop collecting on all debtors involved in eggshell apartments.
This gave many people a moment of respite, and some “veterans” who knew this well would falsely claim that they were victims of eggshell apartments, thus also avoiding so many collections. Some would even deliberately provoke the collectors by forcing them to swear at them with insulting words, and then secretly record a complaint to the platform as a reason for refusing to repay the loan.
In the few months I have been on the job, I have been exhausted.
Because the people I was collecting from were late in paying their debts, and their performance had been poor, I left the company at the end of December and confessed everything to my parents.
I assured my parents that I would pay back the money.
Looking back over the past few months, it was like I had taught myself a lesson that those borrowers owed the most money because of greed and laziness. Many people, for a luxury item, or the latest Apple phone, at a young age, have taken the road of no return to online lending, and it’s hard to get back on.
I have seen a credit report, A4 paper printed 104 pages, Wang supervisor lamented, “This person, this life is considered ruined.”
The day before I left the company, Mr. Wang specially found me.
He said to me, “Wu, in fact, our company has a good reputation in the collection industry, and your information is also in our company.”
I was incredibly surprised because I had never seen my information in the company. Although I said I owed money at the beginning of the interview, that didn’t mean that the other collectors in the company, wouldn’t call on me.
What these fellow collectors hate the most is “old scoundrels”.
“I’ve hidden your information.” Supervisor Wang tapped me on the shoulder.
I wondered why he did that, and he continued.
“Before doing collections, my son committed suicide because of online loans.”
Supervisor Wang looked at me in silence.
I didn’t know how to speak, but Wang, always a kind person, pushed his glasses and said with a smile, “I see that your debt is not much, and the company has some relations with these platforms, so you can pay back 60,000.”
I froze in place for half a day, with mixed feelings in my heart.
“Young people can be excused for taking the wrong path, remember to take the right path in the future.”
Well, I remembered.
Recent Comments