Contacting Creditors

There are laws that say that no one can telephone you and ask you for money if you tell them not to. If they call when you have asked them not to, it is harassment. It causes immense stress to the person in debt.

That being said, it is not a good idea to stop communicating with the organisaton or person that you owe money to.

First, I tell whoever it is on the other end of the phone that I want all contact in writing and then firmly tell them never to telephone me again. Then, I respond to any letters that are written to me within a couple of days. Whether it is via email or a hard copy, I keep in contact with the people I owe money to.

I keep my reply very simple. I write that I do owe the money or, if I disagree with the amount they are demanding I write exactly how much I think I owe. The next sentence I write is that I have every intention of paying my debt in full.

But, and this is the hard bit, I cannot pay them in full now. I can only pay them a small sum. And then I pay it and contact them again the following month. There is something magical that happens to people I owe money to when I keep my word and contact them on a regular basis.

It does not matter how large the sum, if I keep the contact going and stick to what I said I would do, even if the amount I am paying back is truly tiny, the person or institution will accept my repayments.

Now the deal is that I obviously don’t ‘forget’ to keep in touch. On the first of the month my letters go out, often saying virtually the same thing. I owe them money, I will pay them back and this is what I can pay this month.

I used to think that if I owed an institution it was the same as owing a machine. Actually, there is someone in that institution that is seeing my letters. If I can get their name and write to them inside the institution, I have found that I develop a relationship with them, which makes the whole process much easier.

Whether it’s a bank or a mortgage company, a credit card company or a friend, keeping contact regularly and paying tiny amounts of the debt works better than screaming down the phone and promising what I cannot afford.

I create a standard letter on my computer with the name and address and just change the date and the amount I owe. I make sure to set an alarm for the first of the month to send out the letters to those people I owe money to. If I keep this up, all will be well.