4 - Sunday, August 9, 1992 - North Shore News When the credit card goons come calling THESE THINGS can come at you out of the blue. Bob | Hunter STFRCTLY PERSONAL I got back to my desk after a couple of weeks off to find, amid the stacks of faxes and little yellow phone message slips, a half-dozen missives with the word “urgent” scribbled across the top, each one over the name of a man Vd never heard of before. On the latest message slip the words ‘‘legal mutter’’ appeared. i phoned. What happened then left me so furious that my hands were shak- ‘ing, my heart was hammering, and for the next couple of weeks there was almost nothing else I could talk about. - The smarmy young jerk who ‘ answered the phone identified himself.as being from a company I'd never heard of, and told me that I owed his client, a major multinational credit card com- pany, a total of $5,000. Realiy!? First I'd heard of it. since | had never had a card with that particular compuny. and based on his attitude and tone of voice, never would ‘Sorry, wrong guy.” preparing to hang up. ‘Oh no “the goon replied sneeringly. *"I've put a tracez on vou. You're him.”’ “A tracer! What the hell's a racer?" He laughed. *‘Don’t piay dumb. You're Bob Hunter. You write a column at the North Shore News." “So?” **The credit card was issued in North Vancouver, just up the street from you.” “And...7"° -*Your given name is really Robert Hunter. And that's the name the card is under. You owe five thou, buddy."* i hollered a lot of obscenities over the line for a while, demand- ing to know, among other things. who the hell he thought he was, what did the name of his company mean to me anyway, and why didn’t he go do something disgusting to himself? I think I ended up saying, **You're a real little dick, aren "t you?”* And hung up. God, I thought later, guys like him are out there, aren’t they? A collection agency with an ag- gressive malcontent turned loose as a virtual vigilante to terrorize poor boobs who've fallen in ar- rears on their credit card pay- ments, Well, he'd hit the wrong guy, eh? A day later, my wife called to 1 said. say that a letter had arrived by registered mail, threatening that if i didn’t fork over the five thou within a week, lawyers would be taking me to court for non-pav. ment. This made me very. very unhappy. I called up the goon again, but all we did was hur! snarling one- liners at each other, nonce of which ought ever to appear in a family newspaper. It was a stalemate. The guy was totally off base, and he was about to cost me a lot of money because | would have to hire a lawyer to defend myself against a completely false allega- tion. Obviously, the goon and J weren't going to work it out over the phone. My wile had the brilliant idea of calling the credit card company directly and setting up an inter- view with somebody in the PR department, who in turn plugged me into a vice-president, io whom f explained the situation, dwelling on how much the counter-suit for defamation was going to cost them. The VP seemed to understand. “*Call off your pit bull,’’ 1 told him. That was it. No more registered letters. Issue dropped. Except, of course, that I had wasted a fair amount of valuable time (i.e., my own), when I could have been making money or having fun, or, ideally, both. You'll notice that I haven't mentioned the name of the punk collection officer or his sleazebag company, or, for that maticr, the credit card czars who musi routinely unleash their mad-dog collectors after sometimes- innocent souls. That’s because I still don’: want to waste time in court. Besides, the truth of the matter is chat all the big credit outfits probably use the same strong-arm tactics to harass people who owe them money Any such company that doesn: do so is welcome to phone. write or fax me to straighten out the re- cord. The point is. if this one par- a ticular loathesome collection agency was totally wrong in my case, how many other times are they wrong? And how many other ‘pecple can bludgeon their way up to the VP level of a major credit card company to get some action? Id sure hate to be poor, unem- ployed or friendless when the credit card goon comes calling. Really stylish, guys. Cute, too. SACD AMBLESIDE “PACIFIC RIM SPECIALS HACIENDA SANDWICH ° 445-13th Street, West Vancouver 926-8922 THE AVALON HOTEL part League Sign up before Aug. 29 — $10.00 entry a" Big, Big Prizes 5 "14025 Marine Lynn VaLiey Centre 1199 Lynn Valiey Rd., N.V. Prices in effect at this location only. 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