I once asked a debt collector if they could stop sending me notices about the debt I owe and take the amount they would be spending on stamps and paper and apply THAT towards my balance, as at the time, it was the only way they could get any money from me. They weren't amused.

at least they did not hit you with a $20 late fee.

Ack, I had a similar problem with my last phone bill in college (this was the dark ages before cell phones)...For some reason (probably a miscopy on my part, I fully admit) I owed $0.23. If you were mailing in the payment, it had to be by check (no cash), but they had some other absurd policy preventing you from using a check for a debt less than $3.00. Anything less needed to be dealth with in cash, and thus in person, even though I was hundreds of miles away by this point. It took multiple phone calls (which definitely totaled more than $0.23) until I finally got the head of IT/Communications to accept a check (he actually just waived the bill entirely) and release my diploma.

Fun times.

I received a bill from Qwest for $.78 after I cancelled their crappy service. I paid it and included a note on their invoice to tell them how stupid they were.

I'm not sure if they'd have sent me to collections if I hadn't paid it - they probably would have.

It is so simply in most AR software, to tell it to never generate an invoice for a balance under a number you choose ($2?) You can then do a "small balance writeoff" and wipe away the debts to small to bother with.

Another reason Healthcare in America needs reform!

Here, lemme fix that for you:

# Business logic fix
if ( $amount_due < $mailing_costs ) {
$pursue_payment = FALSE;
}
# Send my fee to the OP, thank you.

@AnxiousDemographic: Perfect.

From now on I'll @PLATTWORX: The problem with doing this is it sets up a perverse incentive for everybody to always pay $2 less than the actual amount they owe.

@AnxiousDemographic: Perfect, I'll just pay ($amount_due - $mailing_costs) on all my bills from now on.

I'm surprised business haven't tried to add mailing costs for late notices to the fees owed.

I received a collections notice for a bill that is 15 yrs old. (My old roomate and I had Fido as our phone carrier when we were in college.) Apparently she forgot to pay the remaining balance and I got stuck with the bill. (I had moved out of our flat before she did in 1995.) The bill was suppose to be transferred entirely in her name because I was going with Rogers when I moved to Vancouver. She never had it switched and 15 yrs later I'm stuck with the bill. I called and told them that it shouldn't be on my credit report and that Canadian law states that after 10 yrs all bills are wiped clean. I finally got the collection agency that was pursuing this to admit that they were "bottom feeders" and that if they chose to pursue it, it would be them and not me wasting money. They decided to drop it because this bill has no affect on me anymore.

Weird. I found an erroneous item on my credit report years ago for about $150. When I called and disputed it I asked why they never contacted me. They said it wasn't worth their time.

Why the hell does the letter automatically close about 5 seconds after I click on it?

What? You mean, there are still bill collectors out there who actually MAIL stuff to people? I've been told by one -- who was trying to collect a debt for someone else but demanded I pay up! -- that "they never send out mail any more," they apparently ONLY work by phone calls. (Which is why they were calling me, my number happened to be the last one the debtor had.)

@henrygates:
So they'd rather put a ding on your credit than send you a letter for a debt you probably would have just paid? Sad.

@PsiCop:
Anytime a collector calls me I inform them I don't deal with any type of personal information over the phone. If they think I owe them money, they'd better send me something in writing.

Inevitably, they end up asking for my mailing address. Well, if you claim I owe you money, isn't that something you should already have?

@icantreplyright: It was doing that to me too until I pressed 'pause' at the bottom of the image.

@aguacarbonica: SSSSHHHHHHHH!!!! they'll hear you!

Heheh, I know how you can get back at them! You can pay them in all...pennies, oh...

@PLATTWORX: not a problem just with health care. Stupid stuff like this happens everywhere. We need technology reform. My sister works in a federal courthouse and she uses floppy disks still.

For four, yes, four years I had a collection agency mailing me threats on a $0.00 balance from a physician's office I visited in 1995. Contacting the physician's office answered why the collection agency was involved -- instead of sending the agency a list of delinquent accounts, they inadvertently sent a spreadsheet of all of their accounts. Evidently the collection agency doesn't filter the data either.

Contacting the collection agency brought promises to remove me from their mailing list which materialized four years later. No skin off my teeth, they spent $15 trying to collect on a $0.00 debt and it didn't show on my credit report. For giggles, I did mail them a check for $0.00 but it never cleared.

I received a bil from Konica-Minolta for a copier lease for $.01. I taped a penny I found on the floor in the men's room to the invoice and sent it back in the prepaid envelope they conveniently sent me to return with my payment.....

I once got hit with a collections call for TWO cents. I discovered that my money order to pay the cable bill was short, and tossed a couple of pennies into the envelope, which apparently didn't get counted. During the call, I exchanged some heated words with the collections agent, including some suggestions as to what she could do with her no-doubt well-earned commission on two whole cents.

I saw that I was getting nowhere with her, and asked what her supervisor's name was. She replied "she's not here,". "Nice," I said, "but that isn't what I asked. What's her name, please?" She told me the supervisor's name was Ms. Johannsen. I confirmed the spelling, called back, and lo and behold, there was no such person there. I asked to speak to any avilable supervisor, and explained my story to her. At the end of the day, the "debt" was retired, and I got written confirmation to that effect, as well as a written apology from the agent who'd lied to me.

@lehrdude:

Coulda, been really nice and sent them the "mint" as well.

Oh, and by "no such person there", I mean that no such person was employed there, not simply that she was out, as the agent indicated. I'm not *that* much of a jerk.

Yeah I've had a doctors office send me a collections letter for 78 cents. At least when I paid it the cost of the postage was covered.

@SpruceStreetPhil: Exactly. There are plenty of problems with our current health care system but there is nothing magical about the government that makes them exempt from crappy accounting and/or collections practices.

When the government wants to collect, they have the power to arrest you and/or seize your assets. With the private industry, they would at least have to go through lengthy drawn out proceedings in court to get to that point.

@tbax929: Genius, I say, genius!

Send them a postal money order for $10.00. First, they'll have to PAY one of their employees to go to the PO and cash it. Second, they'll have to cut and mail the OP a check for $9.96.

It will end up costing them about 500 times the amount of the original debt, to collect the original debt. I'm such an ass when I have to deal with incompetence.

@PLATTWORX: If a company had an official policy not to send a bill if the balance was under a certain ammount, customers would start shorting their payments.

@aaron8301: I'm pretty sure money orders can be deposited just like checks, which a collection agency should be used to handling.

@tbax929: The reason this collector said "we never send out mail anymore" is because I demanded that they put something in writing, so I could show it was a debt that belonged to someone else ('cause it would have the other person's name on it).

Why the collector was even talking to me, instead of the true debtor, is also against the law, and I told the collector that too. She wasn't impressed with that either. I think she was convinced I was the debtor.

At any rate, I told her the phone call was over, she was talking to the wrong person, and she would have to sue me for the money. The same company called a few times after that but I hung up every time, as soon as I realized who it was (they were gaming caller ID, too, which is also not legit). Eventually they stopped calling.

@PLATTWORX: There's a CFO at a client of mine on the New York City/Hunts Point Terminal Market who I'm sure would love to talk to..er..at you about writing off nickels here and dimes there and how it all adds up.

@PsiCop: Hahah that's so scammy. Especially since they are legally obligated to cease contacting you by phone if you request it.

@PLATTWORX: @rpm773: Missed the part about the OP saying he actually called the collections agency and it told him to ignore the bills.

I suspect the aforementioned CFO would love to talk to..er..at the collections agency about reducing postal costs. :)

Check your credit reports to be sure they don't report it.

@GitEmSteveDave_IsTheStig: In this case, I'd advise the "debtor" to tape four pennies to the bill and send it "postage due".

Challenge the bill, make them state in writing what you owe then call and arrange to make four monthly payments!

I'd print out copies of that and leave it by the entrance during the next shareholders meeting. I'm sure they'll be amused.

Automation can always be customized to prevent this from happening if a value is less than a certain amount.

@AnxiousDemographic: should that be "iff"?

@edrebber: Easily solved by not letting customers know about that practice in the first place :P

And more seriously, it can be solved by summing up all the short payments, and when it gets over a certain number, mail it out.

@AnxiousDemographic:

if( $average_collection_percentage * $amount_due < ( $mailing_costs + $perunit_overhead_costs + $collector_commission_rate * ( $amount_due * $average_collection_percentage ) ) + $profit )
{
$buy_debt = FALSE;
}

It's not just the envelope, paper, and postage costs.

There's a cost for processing the data that produced the invoices (software, servers, data connections, labor). Then a cost for someone to print it (labor, printing machine costs, paper), then a cost for someone else to put it in the envelope (envelope costs, plus more machine costs, plus the postage), probably a QC person to check it, fuel to truck that mail to the Post Office, and then it finally gets in the mail.

All of the costs to process, print, finish, and mail are higher if the collection agency does that themselves, and lower if they outsource it to a mailing company. I work for such a company.

The postage is probably about half the total cost of producing these statements.

And of course, ALL of this is more than the past due balance. Insane that they sent four of them. Smart billers filter their data to remove stupid balances like this. They've probably spent a total of $3.00 to collect 4 cents, for which they paid effectively nothing to the original Doctor office. What a waste.

Several years ago I had a store credit card on it that somehow ended up with a credit of $0.01 on it. for two tears, once a month they sent me a statement alerting me that I had a $0.01 credit on the card. The store was ultimately bought and merged into what now is Macy's and they finally figured out that I no longer needed a statement every month telling me that they owed me a penny.

@aaron8301: There's no extra cost for processing Postal money orders.

The payments would go to a lockbox service (probably not the collection agency) who does nothing but process payments for clients. Probably a dozen different kinds of payments. It's highly efficient and makes no large difference to them if it's Postal money order or a check.

Now, a non-Postal money order -the oddball kind sold by gas stations or grocery stores- CAN be a pain to cash. Nobody will take them.

I once received a collection letter from my old Bloomingdale's charge account. I saved this letter because of it's absurdity.

"We notice that your account has become past due in the amount of $0.00, and is now zero days late."

with the obligatory words at the bottom, "This is an attempt to collect a debt, any information obtained will be used for that purpose"

Just how do you collect $0.00

@MostlyHarmless: I think that second idea would eventually sow the seeds of confusion for your customer and your Accounts Receivable/collections department.

I don't any receivables manager who would do this. Letting your customer go on invoice you intend to collect on, no matter how small, is a sloppy collections practice. I think you decide if you're going to collect on it (and continue to notify the customer) or write it off and be done with it.

@P_Smith: This is especially fun when they use a "postage paid" envelope, because the receiver gets charged for the extra weight.

@katstermonster: I think Zug.com or Cockeyed did this once. I am too lazy to search tho.

I had $0.01 in federal withholding on my last W-2 (college work-study job, so not much money involved). I thought about filing a 1040 to get my penny back, but decided it wasn't worth the trouble. I hope the $0.01 went to fund schools or something.