In this difficult – but NOT recessed – economy, my family is having to make some hard choices about which bills to pay. Among other things, our electric bill has tripled, in spite of the fact that we keep it set to 78 all day long. We had already disconnected our cable TV because we don’t use it. We trimmed back our cell phone plan to the bone. We cook at home and don’t eat out. We work as much overtime as we can get. Still – the student loan bills have gotten behind and it can’t be helped right now, with our medical expenses. Forbearance, deferment, some other solution may help. We’re checking into it. But in the meantime Sallie Mae collectors claim they are not bound to comply with the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act – although Sallie Mae job postings include a requirement to adhere to it. Whether they are bound or not, they violate its principles freely, including calling at least once an hour between 8am and 9pm and using profane and abusive language.
Paying the bill will, of course, make this behavior stop. But I really have no way of paying my debt at this time, so this is how I’m getting them to modify their behavior in their dealings with me.
When they call, I immediately get their name and operator number and get through the verification process. Then I inform them that the call is being recorded. Most hang up immediately. Some inform me that I’m not allowed to record the call if they don’t give their consent. I tell them, “Louisiana is a one-party consent state and I give mine – I don’t need yours.” At this point another large percentage of them will hang up. A rare few continue to argue; I stick to my guns in the politest possible manner. One asked me whether that applied when calls crossed state lines. I confidently answered yes, even though I’m not entirely sure. I did this because a) unless I release the recordings in some way, Sallie Mae is not going to bring charges against me, and probably cannot bring them. b) if I released any recordings it would be a PR nightmare for Sallie Mae, because they are unbelievably abusive. They know it, and that’s why they don’t want to be recorded. c) I keep telling them that if they want to communicate with me by telephone, they will have to give their consent; otherwise they will have to contact me by mail – and that continuing the phone call and not hanging up after I’ve informed them indicates consent.
The few that stay on the phone are courteous and we quickly establish that I have every intention of paying what I owe as soon as I possibly can, but I won’t be making a payment now and cannot commit to a date when I will. What I have noticed is that when I can get through the verification process, it evidently triggers something in their call queue that I have been successfully contacted, because they only call every two or three hours, instead of every hour.
Regarding interstate phone call recording, the FCC says:
The FCC protects the privacy of telephone conversations by requiring notification before a recording device is used to record interstate (between different states) or international wireline calls. Interstate or international wireline conversations may not be recorded unless the use of the recording device is:
preceded by verbal or written consent of all parties to the telephone conversation; or
preceded by verbal notification that is recorded at the beginning, and as part of the call, by the recording party; or
accompanied by an automatic tone warning device, sometimes called a “beep tone,” that automatically produces a distinct signal that is repeated at regular intervals during the course of the telephone conversation when the recording device is in use.
Also, a recording device can only be used if it can be physically connected to and disconnected from the telephone line or if it can be switched on and off.
I’m pretty confident that my notice that they are being recorded, and if they want to communicate with me by telephone they are going to have to give their consent, or else hang up, gives me enough of a defense – but in any case I’m not at all worried that they’ll sue or bring charges against me. Again, it would be a PR nightmare for them.
So if you’re having this problem with Sallie Mae, don’t take my advice, because I’m a web developer not a lawyer, and in this post I’m not giving advice*, I’m telling you what I personally am doing. But you might want to check into it yourself and see if doing this might help you out also. Life is hard enough without people ringing you up and abusing you at home and on your cell phone thirteen times a day.
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*Well, okay, a little advice – if I were you, I would NOT record a phone call and then post it on the internet, no matter how entertaining it is. (And it IS entertaining to have these aggressive, abusive people suddenly stop in their tracks and start stuttering that I HAVE TO turn off my recorder or ELSE!) Don’t post any phone recordings anywhere unless you get a clear go-ahead from an attorney, that’s my advice.
And just a little tiny bit more advice – there’s no excuse for how they act, of course, but it is good to keep in mind that they probably get yelled at a lot by debtors. Working in a call center is a stressful, aggravating job. I’m very much in favor of keeping them accountable and in not allowing myself to be abused, but prayer is always a good idea too.
I can relate to your woes with one exception – I have been harassed by creditors who are after someone who shares a similar name. They repeatedly contact me stating that I owe money for bills to companies x, y and z. When I inform them that I do not now and never have had accounts with these businesses, they begin to yell at me and try to intimidate me into paying these bills.
They ask for the last 4 digits of my SSN to verify I am not the person. I refuse to give that type of information to someone I did not contact for business purposes. The crazy thing is that if they have the real person’s SSN – even the last 4 digits, they can do an address search and find out that I am not that person. I have worked in HR, and we used an address search firm to locate people so we could provide legal notices.
It is bad enough when they harass you for money that you legitimately owe, and their practices and tactics are embarrassingly horrid. It is even worse when they harass you for debt you did not incur because they are too inept to find the right person!
We’ve dealt with that too… get their address from them and send a proof of debt verification letter, certified mail, requesting they prove the debt is real and that you are the person they want. And document each call as thoroughly as you can, including recording if you can legally do it, because if they are in violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, you can collect from them to the tune of thousands of dollars.
You might also get your credit report to make sure nothing else is on their that isn’t yours. It’s worth a small fee to make sure someone else isn’t messing up your credit. It took me forever to get a decent credit rating after my husband’s death, and it’s just killing me now to have this go on and undo all that work… to have someone else’s debt chipping away at your score would be just infuriating.