Stinking, greasy cog in a soulless and corrupt machine

[mbarrick]

So I got a call from the Student Loan Nazi's today. In all the years I have been faithfully paying back this debt I have never had the same cubicle monkey twice. The stinking, greasy cog in the soulless and corrupt machine du jour was one Chad Manning, "Collector Assistant Supervisor" (or "Super Ass" for short). From the word go he took a condescending tone with me that immediately raised my hackles. In the course of trying to pay back this loan I have been lied to by the banks and subsequently had my loan defaulted through no fault of my own (I even still have all the correspondence to prove it was their error, not mine - not that it is of any use at all). Thereafter I have been harrassed, threatened and lied to by the American owned collection agency that has the exclusive contract to collect on the Canadian government's debt (and pocket a whopping 20% in the case of student loans, per the Cananda Student Loans Act). I've had them reneg on agreements, fail to follow instructions, and even process post-dated cheques ahead of the date they were written for. I'm sick of explaining my life to an endless parade of Edmontonian hicks. Given what I expect to not get back as a tax return this year should pretty much, if not completely, elimitate what's left of this loan I have it in mind to give my new pal Chad (I wonder if he is any relation to Preston?) Manning a call and express my heart-felt opinion of him and his profession.

Student loans should be abolished, as should consumer credit, and even credit on a whole. Credit just artifically inflates prices and further floats along an untimately untenable system. Do you think a "starter" home in Vancouver would go for $250,000 if people actually had to pay up front for it? Without credit you would see apartments selling for $10,000, houses for $20,000, new cars for maybe $2,500 or so... The average North American has about a $15,000 USD credit card debt alone, let alone student loans and mortgages. And while they wallow in their debt they go ahead and do things like "invest" in "ethical funds" and think they are being smart and good. I don't care whose stock one buys into, it's just feeding an even more fucked-up part of the same fucked-up system. Those stocks are effectivly loans to companies. Public companies operate with a mind to feeding the debt they owe to their stockholders, not with a mind of actually producing any real wealth. That's all it comes down to: produce more than you consume.

I'm 35 years old and my fondest financial wish right now is to have, on paper, $0. No loans, no credit card balances, no money in the bank. From that point on my money is entirely my own business.

Comments

[edbook.livejournal.com]

easy way to handle it... when someone calls, ask who is calling and what it's about and then tell them the person they are calling is deceased... it works every time... later if they do get ahold of you, and tell you about the misinformation... tell them that the person they must have talked to is deceased.

Peace

"Sorry, I'm dead."

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

LOL.

But really, it's not so much that they called, I was expecting the call. I send them batches of six post-dated cheques every January and July. I've been doing so for seven years. You'd think by now they'd realise that I was committed to paying off the debt, but every six months I get some new kid that has his snot-nose in the air and talks to me like I am about to welch and skip to Costa Rica.

It's just this one loan and credit agency, too, which handles the federal portion of my student loans. The provincial authority that administers the collection of my provincial student loans simply takes a pre-arranged amount from my account each month and sends me statement at the end of the year. It's painless. They haven't needed to talk to me nor I them in over four years. They aren't compelled to treat me like an assumed criminal on a regular basis.