A Sex Change to Dodge Debt Collectors? What Else Will Consumers do to Evade?

http://www.insidearm.com/news/00038138-a-sex-change-to-dodge-debt-collectors-wha/

I just read the story over the weekend. Honestly, I thought it was just a sensational headline run by a UK tabloid, and that there had to be a catch. But it ran in The Telegraph, one of England’s more respectable papers, so…

The story goes that a British actress was researching a role in a play, a character that was saddled with debt. So she was speaking with employees of a local credit union to get an idea of how desperate borrowers behaved when pushed to the limit. They told her about a man who got a sex change operation, in part, to escape creditors and debt collectors.

The man, from the West Midlands area, ran up some $75,000 in debt after he lost his job and could no longer pay his mortgage. He decided that gender reassignment surgery would help him dodge calls and skip tracing efforts (I honestly hope he had other motives as well). So he went through with the operation. But, according to the story, it is now believed that he was working on paying off his debts with his creditors anyway.

Now this is an extreme – probably the most extreme I’ve ever heard – example of bill dodging activity. But I have to believe that consumers have gone to great lengths to get out of paying their debts.

Soon, insideARM will be launching a monthly contest series for debt collectors and other frontline ARM workers. The first installment of the series will be the best “debt collection stories.” We will select a group of finalists from submissions and our readers will vote on the entries. The winner will receive a prize.

Maybe a unique or clever evasion, inspired by the story above, will win the day. Or maybe it will be a story of how a debt collector truly helped a consumer that needed to pay a bill. The stories can be humorous or inspirational, or whatever, and you can submit them in any format. We just ask that they be clean and honest.

More details to come very soon, but if you have a great story to share, go ahead and get a jump on the competition. Submit your debt collection stories to editor@insidearm.com or use the comments feature below. We will keep track of the submissions and they will be included when the contest begins.