How People Working in Debt Collection Handle Abuse From Callers
Guybrielle Madison keeps a stockpile of crunchy snacks hanging from the door inside her pantry turned home office, where she works remotely as a debt collector at United Collection Bureau, a family-owned company with headquarters in Toledo, Ohio.She prefers crackers, pretzels and cheese puffs.
The louder the crunch, the better.Whenever shouting begins to filter through her headset, she mutes her microphone, opens a bag and starts crunching to drown out the noise.“If they’re cussing at me and I’m eating, I only hear myself chewing,” said Ms.Madison, a 31-year-old single mother who lives in Memphis.Once, a man began shouting at her after she asked him to verify his identity.
He called her a racial slur, she recalled, and said he was going to search for her online.Ms.
Madison, who is Black, said she was regularly called racial slurs while doing her job.Ms.Madison is one of roughly 167,000 debt collectors working in the United States today — a work force that occupies one of the most reviled positions in the American economy.
In May, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported that 13.1 percent of credit-card balances were at least 90 days delinquent during the first quarter of 2026, the highest rate in 15 years.Credit card debt is sent to collection agencies after 90 to 180 days of missed payments.
That’s when the calls begin.Some debtors have turned to credit-counseling agencies or cut back on spending.Some ignore the calls.
Others turn their rage on the person behind the phone.For debt collectors like Ms.
Madison, this is just part of a job that offers what many workers with limited options need: steady schedules, remote work and no college degree requirement — at an average hourly wage of $22 an hour, with the chance of earning bonus checks for reaching goals at some collection agencies.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.If y...