I was literally on my way out the door Saturday morning to do a little grocery shopping with my mom. The phone rang; I answered it.

It was CIBC. Though she called MY apartment at 10 a.m. on a Saturday morning, I had to verify all of my address information, plus my birth date and telephone number.

The operator asked for my work phone number, which I disregarded (they don't have it on file). When she realized I'd never given her a work number, she asked for it again. I refused to give it to her. (I'm not willing to be harassed at work).

"But we like to have a second number on file for you," she said. "What about a cell phone? Or can I get your work number?"

That was her third request for it. I told her, "I work at an in-bound call centre. I cannot take personal calls. And I do not have a cellphone."

Mostly true. I don't have a cellphone, and I work as an Inside Sales Rep. I certainly don't want my boss or coworkers answering the phone for CIBC.

"Well, what about the name of the company?"

Right. 'Cause I don't know that you can just look up the company name on the internet and get the phone number, right?

She got all bent out of shape because I was totally unwilling to give her the information she was asking for.

Then she got to the point of the call. "Well, we've noticed that your payments have been about a month behind..."

Yeah, you've been getting money every month for the past three months, thank you very much. Yes, I had been a payment behind, but you're getting paid. I told her that I'd made a double payment on Friday morning AT THE BRANCH.

"Oh, you did? It doesn't show on my files." Well, honey, I've got my receipts, and your cashier took my cheques. It's not my fault if you don't update your systems regularly enough.

It makes me wonder about the competence of the people that they hire, and the systems that they have in place to handle loans.

 if you received a phone callon Saturday morning, it wasn;t from a member of the CIBC. This would have been a colelctor at a collection agency. C.I.B.C. reps don't work on Saturday. Collectionagencies usually require that their staff work on Saturday as much as possible to bring commission earnings up. The last saturday of any given month is their mandatory work saturday.

 I gather this is the first time you have heard from sucha  person? If so, it would be a new assignment to an agency from the CIBC. It may be an account in the "early-out" program which is outsorcing to collect past due payments only.. or "Cure program" which is an outsourcing system that agencies have to collect the risk amount owing.

Now that's interesting, Johnny. Now I'm doubly glad I didn't pass any additional information along. She did say that she was calling from CIBC.

When she asked why my payments were running late, I simply told her that my husband had been unemployed for three months (December 19 - mid-March) and that we were catching up. She backed right off when she heard that my future payments should be made on time. That might also explain why she didn't know about the payments I'd made on Friday.

I'll be very careful what I say to who on the phone in the future.

Someone to blame....Yeah. I write down every name, now.

When I called CIBC back in April to find out exactly what my outstanding amounts were and to advise them I would be making a small payment on each of my loans (Fed/Prov), Gary Singh was incredibly rude. Only reason I remember his name. He told me that my payments were not good enough and that without full payment of my past-due amounts, he (yes, HE) was going to make sure that my loans went to collections. I told him my husband had been unemployed for three months and that his EI had been screwed up, and I could only afford to put small amounts towards my loans until we got ourselves together again.

Gary threatened me with a collection agency again. I said that was fine, I didn't have the money to pay them, either. Gary said he didn't care, it wasn't his problem. I have a ton of patience, but he was grating on my last nerve. I told him politely that I hadn't called to argue with him, just to advise him that I was making a payment and could he record it on my file. He argued with me again about the size of my payment, the fact that I had to pay at least the interest, and did I know what was happening to my credit rating?

I said "thank you, Gary." Then I hung up on him.

I called back and got a polite lady. Told her I was making a payment, what the payment would be, and when I would be making it. She accepted it all with good grace and made the notes in my file.

There is no reason why I should have to deal with the Gary Singhs of the world...I didn't borrow his money. And he's more a typical example of the people I've dealt with at CIBC than the polite lady I got second time around.