Death, Sex & Money: A Former Debt Collector's Unpaid Bills

Slate Culture

When Angela first started working at a debt collection agency, she says she barely understood what her job was. "I was so completely awestruck that people didn't pay their bills," she told Anna in 2019, when this episode originally aired. Angela ended up working as a collector for 15 years, working her way up and getting monthly bonuses for getting people to pay up. But then, in 2018, she was accused of being part of a scheme to collect debt in unlawful ways, and was banned from the industry for life. Soon after she started racking up debt of her own, and got calls from bill collectors. At first, she said, she would pick up the phone when collectors called, just to critique them. "Now I just block the number and move on," she said. "I will eventually get them paid off and until I can, there is no point in wasting their time."

Podcast production by Katie Bishop in 2019.

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