The Curmudgeonly Awards: Debt Collection on the Dead

You're dead? That won't stop the debt collector. Photo by Allen Brisson-Smith for The New York Times

Today's Curmugeonly Award goes to DCM Services of Minneapolis. This up-and-coming business makes its money as a collection agency for dead people. With sympathy and understanding, DCM sics its folks to try and settle the debts of the dead by collecting from their berieved relatives. Apparently, it isn't enough to be dead, DCM will collect anyway, preying on the emotions of those left behind, even though most laws have no hold on the relatives of the deceased. Worse are the companies who use DCM's services to send a dead person's account to collections.

New hires at DCM train for three weeks in what the company calls “empathic active listening,” which mixes the comforting air of a funeral director with the nonjudgmental tones of a friend. The new employees learn to use such anger-deflecting phrases as “If I hear you correctly, you’d like...”

“You get to be the person who cares,” the training manager, Autumn Boomgaarden, told a class of four new hires. (NY Times)

In other news, recent competitors to DCM have announced that they too will cash in on collections from the dead, trying to edge into the lucrative business. BODY Collections, LLC of Columbus, Ohio announced last week that they will hire ten new mediums to channel the dead to help debt collectors. The new debt channelers will hold seances with the deceased's family, providing comfort while also allowing BODY to discover any hidden stashes of cash the deceased may have left behind.

Hat's off to you DCM Services! You are the consummate caring company.