There was a time when I had to sue one of my creditors.  Yes, you read that right. I sued one of my creditors.  And I would do it again.

My creditor made a mistake and blamed it on me.  They called my house and wanted me to confirm my identity so that “they could be sure they were speaking to the right person”.  Anyone who knows me knows that I’m never going to give out my personal information to someone who called me on the Phone.  That’s just not happening.  And that’s what I told my creditor.  Well, since I wouldn’t confirm my identity, they said they couldn’t talk to me about the problem with my account on the phone.  Stalemate.  Guess we won’t talk about the problem.  I suggested they send me something in writing and hung up.

Imagine my surprise when I didn’t receive anything in the mail but instead began to receive 8 – 10 Collection calls a day.  Given my feisty personality and my professional background (previously I was a consumer protection attorney), this was a really bad move by my creditor.  First, I knew that I was up to date with my payments.  Second, they still hadn’t sent me anything in the mail to explain what the problem was. Third, I was now pissed off. The collection employees were rude and nasty on the phone. They kept insinuating that I was behind on my payment.  I’m many things but a deadbeat is not one of them. Now you’re attacking my character.  It’s on.

You know that I’m an advocate of folks learning the correlation between their finances and their Career Success.  This situation that was playing out with my creditor was a prime example except it wasn’t my career that it was impacting.  It was my husband’s.  I happen to like my husband’s paycheck and anything that affects it is really going to be on my bad side.

While this situation with my creditor was going on, my husband was in the process of studying for an extremely important certification for his job.  He’s kind of a big wig in the IT field.  This certification would really help his career and increase his salary.  The constant Collection Calls to the house were really interfering with his ability to study for his test.  He was becoming agitated by the calls.  I knew I had to do something about the situation.

I was lucky in that I knew all about the various Debt Collection Laws.  I knew that 8 – 10 calls a day was probably a violation of my state’s debt collection law.  So I began collection information for a lawsuit.  I took pictures of the caller id of every call my creditor made to my house.  I started a phone log of what was said on every call.  I did this for 2 months.  Then I called a lawyer.  And we sued my creditor.

The minute we served the creditor, the phone calls stopped.  My husband was very grateful for that.  He was able to concentrate on studying again.  He had postponed taking his test during all the phone calls.  He ultimately passed his test and received an increase in his salary but it would have happened sooner if all those collection calls weren’t coming into the house.

Turns out that this mountain of a problem was all caused by a balance on my loan of less than $60.  I made all of the payments but somehow there was this little balance left.  This small balance ended up costing my creditor quite a bit in the lawsuit.  Let’s just say I came out of the lawsuit a very happy lady.

I say all of this to point out two things.

If you don’t think Personal Finance problems can affect your career, you’re wrong.  My husband had to postpone his test and wait on his salary increase.  I’m sure his employer wasn’t happy about him postponing the test. My husband had to work a little harder to make sure his boss continued to look at him in a good light.  This could easily be you on any given day.

Also, you don’t have to take abusive collection tactics lying down.  You have the right to fight back.  If a collection agency is abusing you, federal law offers you various protections.  If a creditor is doing the collection calls themselves, your state may have debt collection laws that offer you protection.  The best consumer protection lawyers around the country can be found at the National Association of Consumer Advocates.

And if you want to learn more about the Power of Personal Finance on Productivity and Career Success, feel free to suggest to your employer to bring me in for training.