When I was nineteen, after being told that I was unemployable for every dishwashing, barbacking, and retail position that I applied for, I found myself working as a debt collector at a third-party collection agency. It was my job to motivate people to clear out their debts in the face of mounting interest or tarnished credit scores, and I was incentivized to do so by the opportunity to earn a commission percentage on each repayment I successfully negotiated.
One of the most insidious things that I remember occurring in this industry was how we offered to close accounts if debtors agreed to pay portions of their balances, usually in the neighbourhood of 50–75 percent of the outstanding amount. We were urged to phrase this offer with a degree of finality: the debtor would think they no longer owed any money, but in reality, there was nothing preventing creditors from rebundling the remainder of the debt with other agencies, all while the meter of interest ticked on. Debts like these seemingly ensured that people would never escape the thumb of usurious creditors, and debt collection, I realized, was but one cog in the silent, efficient machinery of the credit system assailing us.
