Debt Collectors are Discussed in Every Corner of the Internet

Last week, you may have noticed insideARM.com take a great deal of time to discuss how properly leveraging the Internet can help your ARM business and the industry as a whole. In case you missed any of it, read the pieces from Michael Klozotsky, Mike Bevel, and Naveen Hariprasad.

These were all great articles, focusing on how ARM professionals need to catch up in getting their message out using content distributed on popular Internet sites and applications. But opportunities to influence discussions about debt collectors aren’t limited to the bright, shiny corners of the World Wide Web.

A thread over the weekend on popular social news site Reddit focused on debt collection. For those that aren’t familiar, Reddit is one of the most highly-trafficked news aggregation sites on the Internet. Users submit stories on a broad range of topics that are then discussed in lengthy threads. (It’s now time for a strong disclaimer: much of the content on Reddit is dark and disturbing. So for the purposes of this blog entry, don’t go clicking around too much on the site unless you’re prepared for the worst.)

A popular thread format on Reddit is “Ask Me Anything,” usually begun by a user that declares who they are (usually something odd and/or interesting) and imploring other users to ask any question, which they will answer. Obviously, most of these threads are for comedic value, but there are some serious discussions that take place in Reddit threads.

On Saturday, a Reddit user started a thread, “I am a bill collector for college debt and low-income based student loans. Ask me anything.” (another warning: there is strong language in this thread) Instead of devolving into a cringe-inducing flame war, the thread was actually quite thoughtful, with many users asking questions of the collector that many in the ARM industry would love the opportunity to answer. And many did.

Not only did the thread originator give great answers to the questions, but he/she was joined by peers in the ARM industry that gave support to some answers and offered a different point-of-view on others. This reveals the most important point that we at insideARM.com are trying to convey: get involved in the conversation.

Most in the debt collection industry think the Internet was designed to destroy the business; that there is literally only one narrative out there regarding collectors. And while it’s true that most of the discussions out there are negative, most of the time consumers have legitimate questions about the debt collection process. Who would you rather answer those: a debt collection professional or a consumer attorney?

If you stumble across threads like these, please take a few minutes to register to whatever site is hosting it and jump into the conversation.  You have the opportunity to define yourself rather than allowing others to do it for you.