Mike Ginsberg Blog: What?s your best collection story?

I am sure your collectors have stories. Great stories. Maybe even classic stories. A story about a successful collection that suprised you, or maybe a story about a way a collector positively influenced someone’s life.

You probably have your own story as a bill collector. I have one that I will share. It is not an actual collection story but it is related.

My father, who passed away almost 20 years ago, was a bill collector for a collection agency in Manhattan. I remember it like it was yesterday – walking into his agency after school. At that time, smoking was allowed on the collection floor. (I think I just dated myself.) There were rows and rows of small desks, each equipped with the most up-to-date technology available: a rotary telephone, an ashtray (he didn’t even smoke) and of course a rolodex for the manager to fill up with cards (a 1970 version of a laptop, I suppose). It was a loud floor but I remember asking my dad why he wasn’t raising his voice. He told me that he never raised his voice to make a collection call. For the record; this was before the advent of FDCPA in 1977.

InsideARM is looking for the best collection stories in the industry. They can be inspiring, funny, poignant…whatever you’ve got. They plan to pick the top submissions and then showcase the finalists on insideARM for a reader vote to determine a winner. The story with the most votes wins a $50 gift certificate to Amazon.com.

This is the first contest in a series that InsideARM will be running for ARM professionals. I strongly encourage you to spread the word. You might run your own contest within your agency and send in the top entries. Heck, send in all of the submissions. The more the merrier!

Go to http://www.insidearm.com/go/story-contest for more information and to submit your story.