Fight Back Against Unfair Debt Collection Practices: Know Your Rights and Protect Yourself from Threats, Lies, and Intimidation

1. Lessons in Deception

It is 7:45 a.m. on a frigid January morning. I circle well to the rear of the parking lot behind the blocky office building. Spots near the front door are reserved for higher-ups, I was told during my interview for this job. So I park in the back, alongside domestic compacts like mine. Hardly any of them are adorned with bumper stickers or vanity plates. Maybe debt collectors don’t like to call attention to themselves. The parking spots nearer to the entrance are crowded with SUVs.

Inside, 20 of us new hires stamp the snow off our boots, trudge up the stairs, and file into the training room. The classroom is partitioned off to one side of the collection “floor,” a vast expanse that runs the length of the building’s second ...