Doing it Wrong: The Long Argument

This is the argument: Debt collectors are abusive and the entire industry is corrupt. It’s not a nuanced argument — but there’s little room for nuance in an argument that’s so wrong.

So you’ve got your video above. It opens with the allegation that, next to identity theft, complaints about debt collectors are the most common, according to the FTC. This may very well be true; it’s certainly not a surprising allegation. Here is a list of my Top 3 Least Favorite Telephone Calls:

1) Phone calls from my mom where she relates any current problem I’m working through to an episode of “Judge Judy” she just watched and ends with disbelief about my “reckless generation.” (I’m pushing 40.)

2) Debt collection calls. (Fewer of these, thankfully, now that I no longer spend like I’m a mad-cap heiress from a ’30s comedy.)

3) Spanish telemarketers — but mostly because it highlights how little I’ve retained from my year-and-a-half of high school Spanish. (“Tengo una cita con Anita” is useful only if I were (a) trying to date; and (b) knew anyone named Anita; or (c) not already married.)

To the point of #2 — no one likes receiving these calls. No one especially likes receiving these calls when they legitimately owe the debt because they can be intrusive and being held accountable by a stranger can is embarrassing. No one would ever argue that it’s a comfortable experience.

The point that isn’t made — in this video, or in almost any critical article written about the debt collection industry — is that the FTC isn’t vetting these calls for legitimacy. The FTC is simply reporting that there are x number of complaints (140,036, according to the most recent number I’ve seen).

That 140 thousand number goes on curious trip from the FTC’s report to news organizations. Rather than representing the gross number of complaints, it becomes the absolute value of how many shady outfits are out there, trying to separate helpless consumers from their hard-earned American dollars.

No part of that is true.

Next, the host says that there has been a 17 percent jump in complaints from last year. She wants to suggest that it’s Collectors Gone Buck Wild that contributes to the increase, and not the fact that, again, (a) the complaints are simply complaints, and not ranked on legitimacy; and (b) there might be more complaints because more Americans are in debt now than ever before thanks to a maelstrom of economic factors.

The video wants to paint the entire industry based on the bad actions of scam artists and criminals — suggesting that that is all you’ll find working the phones and accounts in collection agencies across the country.

It’s an easy story to tell, and people feel really justified in jumping on to the bandwagon. It panders to the audience and shifts the conversation from the true — there are a LOT of people out there in a LOT of debt that they’re not paying back — to the falsely simplified — consumers don’t have to be responsible for their finances because some wrong-doing collection agencies are mean.

It’s unfair. It’s unhelpful. And it’s almost the definition of Doing it Wrong.