Categories: BUSINESS & FINANCE

ICR – International Credit Recovery

I am always amazed when I find someone working a position that they are clearly not cut out for. International Credit Recovery is a collection agency who has been harping on me for the past couple months about a balance due that is not mine. I finally got them to send me an official statement the other day, I had a look at it, saw the discrepancy, was going to write them a letter and send it off, when they called me back today. However the operator from International Credit Recovery, Ashley (845-790-2846) clearly needs to be in another line of work. Not only was this girl abrupt and did not listen to what I was saying, but there were several other factors present which solidified in my mind that this girl was not at all cut out for the phone operator game at a collection agency and/or that she had been doing it for far too long.

International Credit Recovery is “a specialized, full service commercial debt recovery agency specializing in the collection needs of Agricultural, Commercial, and Industrial businesses.” International Credit Recovery was founded in 1968 and they offer their “unique approach” to the collection game means that not only do they recover funds owed but they up the ante to a more “personal” level.

I don’t know if this girl Ashley from International Credit Recovery thought she was like initiating a tete-a-tete with me or that maybe I’d find her coy-rudeness charming or something like that but this has to be the worst way I have ever been treated by anyone on the phone. This feeling is made more obvious by the fact that I was even civil to her. I never raised my voice, I never disrespected her, I barely got a word in edgewise. This conversation was short, the exchange was one-sided (the wrong side, mind you), and her response was curt to the point of being offensive.

The call was regarding something I was already aware of and was something which never should have gone to collections. Actually, as soon as I found out about this debt, I called the party in question and we are working it out absent the collection agency. So they should call off collections anyway. But when this Ashley called me and asked for “Jess SchmiDt-Schmi-did-it, Schmitt,” I was already offended (get my name wrong and correct yourself but don’t mock my name). She then asked if my address was in “Van Ness” California (it’s Van N-U-Y-S – but I wasn’t going to be too particular) and informed me this was an attempt to collect a debt and any information obtained will be used for that purpose.

Okay, fine. I had been meaning to get this letter out; now I could maybe even save a stamp. Ashley leaned in on me hard. She told me what was up and when I tried to intervene she continued to tell me why I was getting collections after me, what I had done wrong, how she knew my particular situation because the same thing had happened to her, and that I needed to settle this today.

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I took a beat and proceeded to explain to her that it was already being worked out when she cut me off and again began to berate me. When I tried to intervene she kept talking over me, getting louder and louder, until finally all she could say was “GOOD DAY;” and she hung up.

Unbelievable that International Credit Recovery, a heralded name in the debt collection sphere since 1968 would ever let someone so rude call their phones her paycheck. But that’s really the problem with short tempered agents who think they already know the answers to questions which haven’t even been asked. My friend Ashley needs to get a new job; maybe curator at a museum or fact checker or research assistant. Something where she works alone, there is no push-back, and she is the one with all the answers. As for International Credit Recovery, well, I’ll be dealing with these jokers in writing only until this matter is fully resolved and closed.