* * * * *
                                        
   This entry has two oblique references that only make sense if you know the
 full story, but I can't tell the full story since it's not mine to fully tell
 so it may make it seem worse than it really is, but I'm still shaken (but not
    stirred) by all of it and am still trying to process the whole thing, so
     that's why the oblique references in this entry (with a title that is
                entirely too long but that's besides the point)
                                        
As a kid, I remember my Granddad (Dad's dad) watching the news, and only the
news, on television. And the occasional episode of “60 Minutes” [1]. As a
result, I was exposed to the media side of “ambush interviews (scroll down to
the bottom) [2]”—you know, Mike Wallace [3] and some camera man lying in wait
for some businessman, politician, doctor, lawyer or controversial public
figure about which some bit of scanal or law suit is pending and as they're
walking past to or from their car kidney punching with a camera and asking a
slew of embarassing and pointed questions.

Such “ambush interviews” always made the ambushee look really bad—why
couldn't they answer what always seemed to be a few simple questions and
their response was always “No comment” or “I have nothing to say” or a kidney
punch back at Mike with a brief case and a comment that was inevitably
bleeped out.

What was never said by Mike Wallace or any other reporter involved in an
“ambush interview” is that the ambushee might not be legally allowed to
answer such questions, or they might not even know how to answer the question
and figure the best course of action is not to say anything for fear of
looking worse than they already are (or will, when the interview is edited
for television [4]).

Such interviews tend to be a “damned if you do, damned if you don't” type of
affair.

* * * * *

My friend Hoade is an expert on collection agencies, having done extensive
research in the field for his first (and still unpublished) novel. By the
time a company approaches a collection agency (or the collection agency
approaches a company) the company has pretty much written off the debt (the
loss is considered an “operating expense” and can be used to offset any taxes
the company pays) and anything the collection agency collects (minus their
“fee”) is pretty much gravy (since the offset taxes more than make up for the
atual income of any debt so collected).

As a result, there isn't much legally a collection agency can do [5] to
actually collect on the debt. Sure, they can trash your credit rating, but
it's a fair assumption that if you have collection agents on your tail, your
credit rating is pretty much gone anyway. They can't garnish wages, or place
liens on property (only the court system can do that, and a company is only
going to go through the court system if it's a metric buttload of money
involved and skip the collection agency entirely). About the only recourse a
collection agency has is intimidation. And surprise. The only two recourses
are intimidation and surprise and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope
[6]. The three recourses are intimidation, surprise … 

Oh. Um. Sorry about that.

So yes, short of the comfy chair and a ruined credit rating, they can't do
anything to you.

* * * * *

And as I'm constantly reminded of, don't sweat the small stuff, and it's all
small stuff.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/60_Minutes
[2] http://www.ceo.tv/articles/cc9.html
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Wallace_(journalist)
[4] http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/programsratings/lovecruise.html
[5] http://www.bbbsilicon.org/topic017.html
[6] http://people.csail.mit.edu/paulfitz/spanish/script.html

Email author at sean@conman.org