The law offices of P. Scott Lowery first notified me on Friday, December 3rd. I talked to Ms. Smith, who for the most part was polite, until she thought I was talking too much and interrupted me asking if she could talk. She also got upset when I told her I did not know if I could come up with $1000 by Monday, but that I would ask my family. Ms. Smith also told me that I did not want the debt I should have shown more effort to avoid it. I told her she had no right to talk to me like that, that this was a debt I have been paying on for six years and any time I have had the money I have put some down to help pay off the debt.
The real issue arose on Monday. December 6th, when I called Ms. Smith back to inform her that I was not able to borrow any money, and that I was looking at my options of debt consolidation or bankruptcy. I am a hard ship case, I do not work and am in school. I literally have NO money. Ms. Smith told me that she wanted to talk to me about debt consolidation and put me on hold.
A Mr. Stanistoski, I do know if that is spelled correctly, but a manager with the firm, got on the phone yelling at me and said, " Ma'am do I understand that you refuse to pay your debt?". I asked him where Ms. Smith had gone, and he replied with he asked me a question. Mr. Stanistoski continued to yell at me telling me that "he was going to tell the laywers to file suit and that I thought it was funny and that I refused to pay." He continued yelling at me, and I must be honest, I yelled back, for around 30 seconds. The last statement I heard him say before I hung up on him was his yelling in my ear, " I will not be talked over! Do you understand me!?" I said a profanity relative to heck with this, and hung up.
I then called back, and informed Ms. Smith that I was recording the call. This time when I asked about debt consolidation she told me that it was completely my prerogative to choose to do so. When asked why Mr. Stanistoski got on the phone yelling at me she replied with, " I was right there, he never raised his voice, he had to pull the phone away because you were screeching at him." Funny, my friend across the room could hear him yelling at me. When I informed her of this she again told me that, "I had not shown effort to pay off the debt and not to call back until I had money." She then hung up on me.
I am not proud of the fact that I am in debt, with $0 income and no financial help, I do what I can to try to improve it and make payments. I have dealt with other collection agencies and have never been treated this way. |