The Cadre +

Student harassed by collection

BY KELL! HANRAHAN

On the afternoon of Wednesday, January 28, 1998,

UPEI student Peter Gillis suf- fered a disturbing case of mis-

taken identity.

Gillis’s roommate had just left their apartment, after

terminating what had appeared to be a distressing phone call. Shortly thereafter the phone

rang again.

When Gillis answered, a woman’s voice on the other end of the line yelled, “You have an outstanding student

loan. You can’t outrun this.”

"You're weird. You're really weird...

Have a nice day."

Gillisresponded by say-

ing “My name is Peter Gillis,”

but the woman asserted that

17 February 1998

agency

"Delinquent" student loan haunts roommate

he was lying and continued to press on about his financial matters. Peter announced his name again, to which he was further accused of being a liar.

Realizing that he had a recording function on his an- swering machine, he began to record the telephone conver- sation. The woman continued by threatening: “You have a delinquent student loan and we're going to come after you,” as Gillis continued to defend his name.

Threats continued: “I'll call you at work, and if that doesn’t work I'll send some- one to your door.” Finally, Gillis inquired as to whom he was speaking with, to which the woman replied “Susan Bell.” When he asked for her telephone number she re- sponded: “You're weird. You're really weird” and then ended the phone call by saying “We're going to have our na- tional manager call youat work tomorrow. Have a nice day.”

Gillis was rewinding the phone recording when the same woman phoned again.

| She asked if he was going to | keep lying or ifhe was willing

I< | to talk. Unable to record this

onuenit aed

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conversation because he would | then end up taping over the 1 -recorded

conversa-

Embroidery a suggested that Specializing in

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she contact Island Tel, wherein she would discover that this telephone number was regis- was tered under the name Peter Gillis. Again, the woman re- ing that his name

Gillis then told the woman that he was furious at

how she had intruded upon him, never once asking if she was speaking with the right person, while yelling at him and calling hima liar. She apolo- gized by saying that she works for a collection agency and deals with liars all the time. She ended the phone call by asking Peterto get a hold of his roommate and tell him to call her.

Gillis’ s story and the re- cording of his phone conversa- tion with the collection agent aired on CBC Radio's “Island Morning” on Thursday, Feb- ruary Sth. The piece was fol- lowed by an interview with a man who works for a collec- tion agency in Ontario, and tours the province giving semi- nars on how to do business as a collection agency. The man was appalled at Gillis’s situa- tion, and the conduct of the collection agent.

During the Callback portion of the morning pro-

“T’ll call you at work, and if that doesn’t work I'll send someone to

your door.”

gram, the question for listeners to phone in and respond to was: “Should collection agen-

cies be allowed to do this?” There was an incred- ible response, as many people called in and shared even more dramatic collection agency sto- ries. The station was unable to broadcast all the calls that came in that morning, so they were aired the next day and further more the following Monday and Thursday as more calls

came in.

On February | Ith, Gillis called the ministry that deals with collection agencies in Ontario, and lodged his formal complaint.

The agency in question, Allied International, is based out of Markham, Ontario, and the agent with whom he spoke was named Patricia. Through- out the course of the two phone calls with Gillis, the collection agent broke eight laws, most notably laws concerning pri- vacy of information, as well as harassment and threat.

First and foremost, once Gillishad identified himself, she called hima liar, and continued to press him about his (room- mate’s) student loan, thus di- vulging information about someone else's financial mat- ters. She had threatened him repeatedly, committed verbal assault by yelling at him, and by calling him back a second time, she had harassed him.

Gillis’s formal complaint will take a few months to be processed, and he says that if he is not satisfied with the end result, he will file a lawsuit.

Why go through such trouble? Because, as Gillis says, “Most students don’t re- alize their rights, in terms of harassment. They don’t real- ize that collection agencies can’t treat them this way.”

Once a student misses

right to sell the student's money to a collection agency. Thus the collection agency “owns” the student's money and can increase the interest on monthly payments. They can then track down a student through his/her Social Insur- ance Number and pursue for payment.

——

Gillis believes that he has been given the opportunity to do something about collec- tion agencies in general, and hopes to start a fight for stu- dent's rights.

“If enough students re- alize [collection agencies] can be taken on and put in their place, then maybe they'll start doing itthemselves,” said Gillis. His case is being dealt with through Ontario jurisdiction, however, Canada presently has no national standards regulat- ing privacy, or collection agency methodology.

“At the very least [stu- dents] will realize that they have rights in the matter and will demand the respect that is due to them.”

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