"Bill collectors expect you to roll over and submit, but Bill-Collector Confidential urges debtors to "master the martial art of Debtsmanship," which means learning the devious ways of bill-collectors and cultivating the will to resist. "Fight back," assert the assertive authors of Bill-Collector Confidential. now in print from High Voltage Press.

This is a radical underground how-to for delinquents who are hounded by collectors. Author Steve Katz is an ex-bill collector and founder of debtorboards.com. Co-author, George Trinkaus wrote the first book on bill collectors back in the consumerism wave of the 1970's. Thirty years later he tied up with Katz to create a totally new book for "a brave new world of credit and collection." Some ominous new players are in that world today, like payday-lenders and junk-debt buyers.   

junk-debt buyers
If a bill collector calls you, advise the authors, you had better find out if he's the creditor, an agent, or one of those "ignominious" junk-debt buyers. 

The JDB buys up old debts in bulk and tries to scare debtors into paying, with fees and interest added on. Often, warn the authors, the debt is "out of statute," meaning that it is legally uncollectible. The JDB will try to trick the debtor into  making a small "good faith" payment on the alleged debt, for once that is done, it's restarted and becomes collectible. 

intimidation
JDB's and collection agents will try to scare you with outrageous threats about what could happen to you and your credit rating. What is your "hot button?" Colletors will find out and push it. Often they tell outright lies and make unlawful intimidations, in which case the debtor can sue the collector under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. "Sue the Bastards" is the chapter that tells how. In the process, the violated debtor can collect cash awards. Suing the bastards is the extreme of debtor self-defense. 

Debtsmen who sue is the focus of a Dallas Observer feature of 1/21/10. But suing is just one defense in the arsenal of strategies embraced by Debtsmanship. The book treats every type of creditor: auto loans, student loans, credit cards ... and how to cope with each of these, as well as collection agents, skip tracers, JDB's, and lawyer collectors. Here is how to contend with a lawsuit, an eviction or foreclosure.

Not for the faint of heart, the art of debtsmanship assumes courage in the debtor-actor. The authors of Bill-Collector Confidential claim that, "If you can act decisively and forthrightly in your own self-interest, the strategies in this book will work for you." 

How a Bill Collector Turned "Debtsman"

"Many years ago I was a bill collector," writes co-author Steve Katz in his preface to Bill-Collector Confidential. "I was good at it." But twenty years later, that career well behind, "I found myself on the receiving end of the collection call. Now suddenly I was the target debtor." 

Like many who fall suddenly into debt, Katz had medical problems. Unable to work, he had even lost his business. It was a financial disaster.

"I discovered that my background as a collector was of little help. I had to relearn the field from this new perspective of the debtor. I looked at my old copy of (co-author) George Trinkaus' Strategies for the Harrassed Bill Payer (1974). The text had become outdated (a new book is needed here, I thought), but the core concept, that debtors can fight back still pertained."

Katz learned to cope with those collector calls so effectively that he went on to found his popular debtorboards.com, where activist debtors share their strategies. And now it's in the book Bill-Collector Confidential (and published in E-book. as Debtsmanship).

When Trinkaus first heard from Katz, his debtor book was thirty years behind him and forgotten. "Your book changed my life," said Katz on the phone. "I was once a bill collector, he announced. What kind of collector was I? This kind:

"I knock on the lady's door. This is a walk-up apartment in Brooklyn. She opens up; two kids cling to her skirt. I wave paper at her. 'If you can't pay your bills, then how can you be a responsible mother. Get your coats, kids, your coming with me.' Of course, she runs in terror for her checkbook. I'm there to dun her for a $30 furniture installment. 

That's the kind of collector I was."