Yes, it's true – debt collectors that are "trained in the five stages of grief" (according to Adam Cohen, chief executive of Phillips & Cohen Associates of Westampton, N.J.) – telephone surviving family members to sympathize with their loss and then encourage them to make good on the deceased person's outstanding bill.
"We want the dead to rest easy, knowing their obligations are taken care of," said Michael Ginsberg of Kaulkin Ginsberg, a consulting company to the debt collection industry.
Never mind the fact that in most states, survivors are NOT obligated to use their own assets to pay for a dead relative's bills. Collectors can file against an estate and are actively using the databases of the country's 3,000 probate courts to discover when estates are opened, but if there is no estate to go after, collectors use the power of sympathy and the pitch of "honoring the wishes of their loved ones." Most of those being called probably believe they are required to pay the debt, as it is not clearly disclosed at the onset of the communication. It seems that the creditors/collectors could be pressing vulnerable, ignorant, non-culpable relatives into taking on the dead's non-existent responsibilities, thereby making the deceased relatives own debilitating debts, which weren't theirs until tricked or otherwise coerced.
Joel from Lowell, Mass., commented, "It was deeply upsetting for me to get a collection call about my father's Sears charge card balance a year after he had died. My father left no estate, and none of what he bought with the small outstanding balance had gone to me. It angers me that this big company was trying to make me feel guilty or responsible for a debt that was in no way mine and that I had no moral, much less legal, obligation to pay."
He isn't the only one outraged by these collection tactics.
Christine in San Francisco said, "As a Ph.D. candidate in psychology, the thought that the five stages of grief developed by Dr. Kubler-Ross could well be used to manipulate people to pay money they don't legally owe is beyond contempt. Particularly given the fact that many more deaths will not be the result of illness, but sadly, the increase in suicide rates resulting from the economic crisis. Here's a better idea: why don't these people get trained in goading rich people to pay the taxes they owe from their off shore bank accounts? Maybe guilt and fidelity won't be as lucrative in this endeavor, but I am sure the market is bigger."
This story, posted by Michael David of North Vancouver, summarizes such an experience:
When my father died after a debilitating and ultimately futile battle with cancer in 1991, we discovered that he had used his credit cards to pay for his obviously-ineffective chemotherapy treatments. Now, the creditors wanted their money and were calling, and calling…and calling…and though we understood ourselves to “not” be legally-responsible for his debt, they insisted every day (and several times a day) that we were.We didn't even have a chance to grieve because now, in addition to trying to bury our dead father, we had to continue telling creditors that he was no longer alive! But they wanted their money and insisted that we "were in fact responsible," contrary to what this article reports.What I don't understand is, why is this news now? "Suddenly" creditors have discovered this newest source of revenue?
After the 15th phone call in five days, an agent from Visa Credit Card services screamed into the telephone, demanding that my brother "provide a final address to send the bill to." So he obliged her by giving the address of the cemetery and told her to "go dig him up." After he slammed the phone down, I took a pair of scissors and physically cut the phone cord. Call-center agents, particularly this sinister brood, should occupy the same circle of Hell that Dante reserved for landlords: the 9th circle. There, frozen in a solid block of ice for all time, they can contemplate their own malevolence while eternally staring at their dead dunned clients’ accounts.
One collection agency, DCM, presented the NYT reporter with a "stack" of letters of appreciation (names redacted). I found this one to be particularly tragic:
One widow wrote that a collector “was so nice to me, even when I could only pay $5 a month a few times.” Saying that money was “so tight” after her husband died, she added: “It was very hard for me, and to get a job at my age. Thank you.”No wonder half of these agencies' new hires don't make it past 90 days. There is no amount of yoga classes, foosball or free lunches that could motivate me to use false sympathy and guilt tactics to collect on a bill, or make old widows go back to work to pay $5 a month.
