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Thou Shalt Not Pay
HUMOR COLUMN By Charley Daniels
People in serious debt are some of the biggest suckers around. It can’t be
helped. Owing a lot of money is like constantly being one hour away from a
root canal. It’s like getting a voice message from your supermodel fiancée
that simply says, “We need to talk.” I mean constant anticipation—but not the
fun type. When the phone rings you’d probably rather talk to a disgruntled
lover than one of those credit card people.
Credit Employee: Mr. Daniels, I’m Sabanticaster Mooldorvige from Herb’s
Habitually Candid Credit. Our records show that you’re due for a caning if you
don’t get that payment to us in the next 12 minutes. You could give me your
checking account number, you debit card number, or your sense of taste to
settle this debt right now.
Constant calls like these are enough to drive some consumers to drinking,
suicide, or even religion. It is that sort of unrestricted desperation that
must make debt management businesses drool. And, like any forward-thinking
business, they’ll do nearly anything to cash in on other people’s misfortunes.
I got an advertisement in my email the other day: “Remove Debt The Christian
Way!” its subject called, apparently without shame. What a shock, since I had
no idea that debt removal could be secular. If there is a “Christian Way,”
which way have I been doing it? More importantly, are all creditors so divine?
Have my own creditors secretly been paying into the coffers of some cult whose
ideas I would not agree with? Do you know if your late payment fees are
sponsoring a religious war, or maybe even a door-to-door conversion mission?
What, exactly, does it mean to remove debt “the Christian Way”? Are these
Christian debt managers simply trying to appeal to my easily influenced
religious sentimentality (in which case they are definitely pandering their
wares to the wrong debtor) or do they, in fact, have a method of removing debt
that is more Christian than, say, Merrill Lynch’s method?
“At Christian Debt Management, we work for our clients,” according to their
Web site (www.christiandebtmanagement.com).
That is helpful to those in financial despair, but not so helpful to those who
are trying to surmise what religion has to do with it. Beside the name, there
is no indication that this company has anything to do with Christianity,
although the name does present a strong case for it. I guess I was just hoping
to discover God’s personal financial consultants when I typed in their Web
address. And all debt management joints—not just the affiliated types—work for
their clients, otherwise they wouldn’t be much of a service, would they?
There is a question and answer section on their Web site that does not tell me
directly what “The Christian Way” is. It does tell me why the nonprofit type
of debt management companies are worse than the for-profit type. You see,
nonprofit debt management companies work with creditors and often force a
budget on their clients. Surely not! How dare they make me manage my debt! Who
do they think they are, some sort of debt management organization? Christian
Debt Management explains that when the nonprofits work with creditors it is a
conflict of interest. But it must also be a conflict of interest to work with
God to manage my debt, since He is the one who got me into this mess to begin
with? If I am powered by the Holy Spirit, that must also include those days
when I’m out on a shopping binge. So without directly saying, the Web site
hints that their Christian Way is to help people and make money. Unlike all
those atheist nonprofit heathens out there.
So I sent them an email (info@christiandebtmanagement.com)
and asked them what sort of services they offer. “Accept Jesus into your
heart, say the Lord’s Prayer, and cut up your credit cards,” seemed like
reasonable advice to hope for, if only because I’m a pureblood cynic. Instead
I got the cold shoulder. Divine disregard. Could it be that I wasn’t vague
enough about my intentions? My junk mail from them is at an all-time high.
Don’t tell me that these devout debt removers have set up an email account to
collect spammable addresses. I called their toll-free telephone number, but it
was no longer in service. Maybe someone needs to help Christian Debt
Management to manage their own debts.
The next logical step was a Google search. After typing in “Christian Debt
Management,” I was met by a great deal of companies with similar-sounding
names like “Christian Debt Consolidation” and “Christian Finance.” More
important, perhaps, I discovered a helpful article over at The Credit Info
Center (www.creditinfo.com)
that shed some light on my search.
The article is titled “Debt Consolidation Companies - Still as ugly as they
used to be.” The more shrewd readers may already see where this is headed.
Before I found anything in the article about Christianity, I ran into this bit
of advice: “Be cautious. Be extremely cautious. Most debt consolidation
companies are in hot water these days: they are being sued by numerous
attorney generals.” Improper pluralization is not necessarily a deal-breaker
in terms of advice from financial consultants—numerous attorneys general would
agree—and at least the writer did not try to scare me into believing him with
some mumbo jumbo about Christianity. In fact, a little farther down the page
there was a list of debt management companies who are not to be trusted that
included this entry: “Christian Debt Consolidation (Or any name with
"Christian" in it. I mean really, - how scummy can you get to play the
religion card?).” By the way, “mumbo jumbo” and “scummy” are both technical
terms in the world of debt consolidation.
That article, though not necessarily the last word, does clear up some of my
previous questions about Christian Debt Management. Though I don’t know the
exact nature of their legal problems—if any exist at all—legal problems in
general explain the absence of religion everywhere but their name, the lack of
response to my email inquiry, and their out-of-service phone line. It is a
scam—a marketing solution for a dishonest company that preys on naïveté and
desperation. So they don’t have a debt removal method that is more Christian
than Merrill Lynch’s method. If anything it is the same method, only less
effective inasmuch as it necessitates much more lying, cheating, and avoiding
probing questions from humor columnists.
Being able to explain this all away so simply gives me a warm feeling inside,
not unlike a metaphysical hug from the Big Loan Officer upstairs. Which
reminds me: using religion to turn a bigger profit has been done for thousands
of years and way more successfully by most of the churches you drive by every
day. Christian Debt Management stands on the shoulders of a giant and picks
off the scraps that fall from its mouth as it feeds. Though somewhat boring,
this all make sense in its simplicity.
The lesson, if one actually exists here, is that desperate times call for
desperate measures and if you’re scummy enough, you can use mumbo jumbo to
trick people into giving you money. It’s a universal truth, really.
Personally, my debt is being managed the old-fashioned way—sickly fear and
not-too-subtle intimidation. In fact, I should get going. I think that
Sabanticaster Mooldorvige is knocking on my door. |
