Palette's Rule for Dealing with Bill Collectors

I laugh at them.

No, seriously. It's a great technique and I recommend it for everyone.

Example:

[phone rings]

"Hello?"

"Hi, this is Shit-Sucking Debt Acquisitions Company from Hauppage, New York. We'd like to speak to Erin Palette in vaguely threatening tones." [Editor's note: some dialog changed to reflect what I heard, rather than what was actually said.]

"Ah, Shit-Suckers. I should have known it was you from your preceding fecal halitosis."

"Yes, you really should have. At any rate, we want you to pay us, oh, $700 for a debt that was charged off four years ago, which we bought for pennies on the dollar in the hopes that we could extort money from you with threats, when clearly the original amount wasn't important enough for your old creditor to pursue."

"I see."

"So, you'll be paying us all at once with a credit card, yes?"

"Not at all, Shit-Suckers. I find your attempts at extortion to be laughable, and thus I mock you. Ha hah."

[there is a brief pause at the other end]

"Um... well, you realize that if you do not pay us, we will be forced to take action against you which will adversely affect your credit rating."

"What you fail to comprehend about this situation is that I don't give a flying fuck about my credit rating." [Note: I actually said this line.]

"...."

"I see that my remarkable candor has rendered you speechless. Allow me to continue. You see, since this debt is under a thousand dollars, I know it's not worth the time and effort of an attorney to collect, because his services would cost more than you'd get from me. Therefore, I know you can't sue me, and thus you're a paper tiger."

"But..."

"Furthermore, seeing as how I live with my parents, have no sustainable income, and have no possessions worth taking -- including my car, which is over 10 years old and has over 130,000 miles on it -- you can't put a lien on my salary or seize anything of value."

"If I could..."

"Therefore, I am calling your bluff, you anal remoras, and invite you to spend additional time and money on form letters and telephone calls which will only earn you further contempt and increasingly polysyllabic verbiage, you cretinous decerebrates."

"What..?"

"Insalubrious regards, my fine young catamite."

[hang up]

~ FIN ~

Of course, not everyone has the requisite fucked finances to pull it off like I can. As Troy so delicately put it a few days ago, I am a deadbeat, and the one nice thing about a shitty financial situation is the knowledge that things can't get worse. Once you realize you can't fall off the floor, you find a remarkable freedom.

Tyler Durden says: It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.