Aaron, The Debt Collector

Yeah, I'm your worst nightmare. Pay up! Settle your debts now or I'll kick your ass. Well, okay. I'm kidding.

I'm not really a debt collector, whether it's the legal kind or the illegal kind. But this is the role I've been handed for the last two weeks. You see, I work at a management corporation for a condominium, in the accounts department, and my job is to collect payments from the owners and tenants. We don't collect rent, we don't own the units, we just collect payments for service charges and water. They all have 30 days to settle the bills or we charge interest. Sounds simple enough, right?

Well, no. Most of them do settle on time, but there are still a great many who do not, and they let their debts build up over time, which add up to months, almost a year and some over a year. This of course doesn't sit well with us, because it's their money that keeps our management corporation running.

So what do the peeps in the building's council do? They get me and my colleague to start calling up our unit owners and ask them to pay up. Which is fine with me, actually. Even though I dislike the idea of speaking to people on the phone about money and things like that. I've had my fair share of verbal abuse from people ever since I got this job. But hey, you gotta do what you gotta do. In the long run, it will help us too. Might help us get a bonus or something.

So I've been calling the latepayers up, and I get a variation of answers, from "Sure, I'll send you a cheque soon" to "Why don't you fax me an accounts statement and I'll get back to you". Good answers, but only if they actually pay up. Then there was this one guy I called yesterday who had apparently sold his unit 5 months ago and didn't even bother to tell us. Great. So I've been sending the bills to the wrong person. And he even got agitated when I asked him when he would come back from overseas, because that's where he said he was. Don't these people know I need concrete answers? You own a unit and you don't even have the responsibility to look after it.

But it gets better! There was a lady I called up, who only speaks Chinese. My weakness. So I handed the phone to my colleague, and when she hung up after the convo was over, she said that the lady asked us to call the other latepayers first, because she knew she wasn't the worst one. Haha. Ha. Very funny. Oh, did I mention the lady was angry when she said that? Weird.

So why can't these people be nice? Or at least pay up on time? I've met some really nice owners and tenants over the last 5 months working here. People who smile and thank you for giving them useful information about their account, or for helping them warn the tenant in their unit to pay the water bills, stuff like that. There are a few who even pay in advance. They give us a nice fat cheque that will settle their bills for the next few months, then they disappear and come back later when it's time to pay again. That way they never get charged interest. These are the kind of people who don't care about the money, they are not going to complain about the bills being too high. Fitting for a condo owner.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you can't afford to keep the unit, then sell it. No point owing a debt you can't settle. Sell it, and cut your losses. Most of these owners don't live in the unit anyway, they just want to own one, or just want to rent it out. It all comes down to whether they can maintain the idea of keeping one.

Was I complaining too much in this post? I probably shouldn't. I mean, I'm Aaron, The Debt Collector! I shouldn't be whining. Right?