Earlier this month, a federal judge in New York ruled that a collection agency should have been more empathetic toward an individual diagnosed with cancer when attempting to collect on an unpaid debt. Now, comes a story from England where the children of a man who committed suicide because of an unpaid tax bill are calling on collection agencies to show more compassion when recovering debts.
Nigel Hurst missed a tax payment of about $3,000 back in 2008. But with fees and penalties, the debt had ballooned to more than $92,000 in the ensuing decade. Hurst committed suicide last October, just before he was set to lose his house.
One of the man’s daughters notes that the man had stopped replying to letters he was being sent about the unpaid debts, but still said the pressure exerted on Hurst was “disgusting and inhumane.”
Hurst, who was a cancer survivor, hid the debt from his family as well as a bankruptcy declaration.
The township said it attempts to collect on its debts in a “consistent and sensitive way,” while using “every available step to recover” unpaid taxes.
Collection agencies are middlemen between a client and an individual. The agencies will ultimately do what the client tells them to do, as long as those instructions are within the bounds of the law. Whether or not to collect from someone who is sick or in a special situation is not usually up to the agency; it’s up to the client to decide whether to continue trying to collect or not.
Way back when, subprime loans used to be called “story” loans because every subprime borrower had a story about their financial situation. There was a sick relative or a divorce or some other series of events that led to them having a less-than-perfect credit score. Collections is no different. Everyone has a story about how they ended up owing a debt. The importance of collecting with empathy can not be overstated, especially in today’s hyper-litigious society.
Collection agencies may sometimes be forced to collect on debts that they might otherwise not want to collect on, but if it’s done with empathy, maybe they can avoid becoming a headline.
