Debt Collection - With A Smile
Sydney Morning Herald
Monday March 27, 1989
ROSS Spies said that if he was represented wrongly as a thug, he'd murder me. Mr Spies and his wife, Sue, armed with a sense of humour and patient determination, are two of a new breed of debt collectors.
The Spies - even their name raises a smile - act as private inquiry agents, as well as debt collectors (more officially known as commercial or mercantile agents). When Mr Spies applied for his private-inquiry licence 20 years ago, he was told that no stage names were allowed. There have been plenty of jokes about their name since then.
In an economic climate where people fear the arrival of a debt collector as much as another rise in interest rates, the Spies want to assure you that they will make their visit as pleasant as possible.
"You can usually do it on the phone - the debtor finds it easier if they don't have to face somebody," Mr Spies said.
"They're usually embarrassed about not paying, or not being able to pay. So you just have a nice, long chat about what's owed, what our involvement is, and how you can usually come to an arrangement for paying it off."
It all sounds relatively painless. But things don't always go so smoothly.
"I've had a few guns pointed at me. People get very stroppy at times. It's only a small percentage of people who get really silly about it. If they've got some great argument with the creditor and you arrive saying you represent the creditor, they go off their heads," Mr Spies said.
Professional Investigations Australia Pty Ltd, the Spies's business, operates from an office at their Mosman house, where they live with their three children.
The debt collector plays an important role, Mr Spies says. "Licensed debt collection agencies do a valuable service. They are a bridge between the creditor and debtor, the first line of contact where there's often hostility.
"If you're experienced, and know how to treat people, you can allay that hostility and get the debtor on to some course of repaying the debt as quickly as possible.
"Quite often there's a reason they're not paying that the creditor doesn't realise, (such as) when they've been given a service that they thought was not good enough." As well as understanding the creditors' needs, Mr Spies sympathises with debtors. "Just about everybody at some time has had a letter from a debt collection agency. We all get in a bit over our heads."
The debt collector as a social worker? Mr Spies says the days of the old-style heavy who bashed down doors and demanded money or else are fading fast. "Behind the scenes there are a lot of heavy debt collectors who go around and break somebody's legs. But they wouldn't stay licensed very long. Most of the old guard have changed over to the new style of doing things."
Under licensing restrictions, Mr Spies said, no form of harassment of the debtor was allowed. This included not having the collector's business name on a vehicle parked in front of someone's house, not leaving a calling card under the front door, and not making too many phone calls at unreasonable hours -all of which could embarrass or annoy the person.
"The law makes it really difficult to get money out of people. If they're really keen not to pay, they put it off long enough so that you spend more money on collecting the debt than it's worth." At least 20 per cent of cases were abandoned for this reason.
If a person flatly refused to pay, the first step was to serve a summons. This was tricky - proceedings could be stalled as long as someone had not received the summons. After 14 days, the court could order that money be taken directly from the debtors' wages or bank account. Often, the debtor simply could not, and would not ever be able to, pay up.
The Spies are also private investigators and are involved in security work, bodyguarding and surveillance. Sue Spies enjoys her work as much as her husband and talks enthusiastically of "tailing" a man or woman suspected by the spouse of having an affair.
It's a far cry from her former occupation as a ballet dancer, when she ran two dance schools on the North Shore. But the jobs had their similarities, Mrs Spies said. You had to be fit. "When you're tailing someone you can't be sitting there in a car for hours and fall asleep."
BEN Slade, a solicitor at Redfern Legal Centre and an author of The Debt Survival Guide, says that people who are faced with debt collectors or repossession agents have many rights. Here are some he considers important.
1. If you have a car or other property on hire purchase (now called a goods mortgage) then the credit provider cannot hire an agent to repossess the property unless it has first given you 30 days' notice of its intention to repossess and its reason for wanting to repossess, and you have not in those 30 days amended the default.
2. A person who comes to the door to repossess your goods or to serve a summons doesn't have to be let in. This includes a bailiff who is an officer appointed by the court.
3. A bailiff has the power to enter your shed but not your home. If you do let the bailiff in, then he can seize all properties, which, in his view, will attain some value at auction. He can't take your bedroom and kitchen furniture. A bailiff can come to your house only if a judgment has been given against you in a court and the creditor has already served the summons.
Debtors have many rights to protect themselves from this harsh aspect of creditors' power and should seek legal advice from: local court staff and chamber magistrates, community legal centres, the Legal Aid Commission, or private solicitors.
© 1989 Sydney Morning Herald
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