ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I shall describe the ways in which some collectors exploit widespread public ignorance and act as effective agents through the creation of anxiety. Outsiders seem to know so little about debt-collectors, and so fearsome is their reputation, that most collectors are able to recover debts without engaging in face-to-face enforcement. Even the very large collectors can operate with threatening letters as their sole weapon. Because collection is carried out mainly by written threats, the occupation covers an immense variety of organizations. At one extreme, a debt-collector could be an enormous concern employing dozens of staff in West End or City offices and, at the other, a solitary individual working from his suburban home. It requires almost no capital and very little expertise to establish an agency and, as a result, there is a considerable turnover of firms. In 1965, for instance, eighteen firms in London called themselves debt-collectors. 2 By 1968, five of these firms had vanished and another eight had appeared.
