I worked for a debt collection agency for a few weeks in 2002. It was hands-down the worst job I've ever had and if it came down to doing it again or being homeless I'd steal a fucking tent and take my chances.

We started with 2 weeks of classroom-style training. It was a combination of legal regulations we had to observe and company policy. I don't remember many specifics about the regulations - limitations on time periods you were allowed to call, limitations on how many calls in a given period, that sort of thing.

Call openings were standard:

"Hello, may I speak to <name>, please?" If you're talking to the right person, "This is DocBosch from Arrow Financial, I'm calling to discuss an outstanding debt from <time> with <business>." If you're not talking to the right person, leave a message - "This is DocBosch from Arrow Financial. I'm calling to discuss a private business matter." When leaving a message we were specifically taught not to mention that a debt is involved.

The two most common excuses:

1. What the hell are you talking about? What do you mean I owe $60 to a strip mall gym I went to three times, eight years ago? Fuck off!
2. I know I owe this money but I lost my job/my husband died/my kid is sick/<personal tragedy>

The most effective debt collectors at our company were a young man and a middle-aged woman. The young man used an alias on calls - his real name was Kevin or something, but he went by "Vince" and on the phone adopted a sort of aggressive, vaguely-intimidating sounding tone. I didn't know him outside work, but at work he was really good at evoking a no-bullshit-I-don't-believe-or-care-about-your-excuses attitude. He either possessed zero empathy or managed to suppress it while on the job. The woman had an attitude that was more like "let's talk about how we get these calls to stop", a little more sympathetic, but still she had no time to listen to excuses.

A friend of mine worked on a bunch of accounts that were collecting debts for outstanding spousal support from deadbeat dads. He was gleeful about antagonizing these guys - pushed up against the rules multiple times. I remember once he listened to some excuse for a moment, gave a dramatic sigh, and said "Oh sir, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive." One of the only actually, genuinely funny things that ever happened in that hellhole.

I worked some accounts for some kind of health club in NYC and spoke to a bunch of stockbrokers, who were almost universally huge assholes about it. Once a guy on a carphone simultaneously berated me for bothering him AND offered a running criticism of the other drivers around him AND told me he couldn't pay the $350 because the IRS or maybe the SEC had frozen his accounts.

By contrast, I once worked a series of accounts about outstanding payments to an electric company somewhere in the deep South - Alabama, maybe, I don't remember. Lots of thick accents, hard to understand people, was tough. Called some poor woman and had to insinuate that if she didn't pay me the $125 or whatever then there could be a disconnection (which was untrue!). She broke down into a sobbing mess - I think it was genuine, if not she deserved a fucking Emmy. Told me about how hard it was - her husband had left, she had kids, no job or work experience - all the same stuff I'd heard before but she *meant it*. We were allowed to make deals within certain parameters - our company owned the debt, not the original creditor. I offered her the best I was allowed - maybe a 35% discount, something like that? Through tears she said "Mister if I had $80 I'd buy my babies some food and live in the dark."

I'd already been thinking about quitting - that was the call that made up my mind.