Not Opening Your Mail Can Get You Into Trouble

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Many years ago a company I worked for had us watch a film on reducing clutter. One of the things the film said to do was to throw away any mail you did not have time to deal with right away. “Just toss it,” the guy in the film said. I decided to do that. Boy did it cut down on the clutter. And the film also claimed the less cutter you have the better you can handle your finances. And boy did my bank account grow. Everything went along great–that is until I started getting angry phone calls from bill collectors. Hey, I didn’t have time to deal with bills so I did what the guy in the film said to do, “Just toss it.” Okay, I just made this up. I would never throw a bill away without paying it. So here is a true story. A few years ago my brother got a letter from a company that he didn’t recognize. He didn’t bother to open the letter. He just tossed it. After getting several of these letters and tossing all of them he got a phone call from the company. It turned out to be a collection company. They were charging him a good sum of money for interest. My brother now found himself in deep trouble. He could have easily paid the original bill but the interest on the bill made it way out of his financial reach. A couple of days after my brother got the phone call he had a doctor’s appointment. He mentioned the collection bill to the receptionist. She told him to call the collection company and tell them he was on disability (which he was) and he could not afford to pay the bill. He did this. Not long ago I asked my brother if the collection company ever hounded him for the money. He told me they had not. However, he felt like he was ripping the company off so he made small payments until the bill was paid off. The company did not charge him any more interest. They probably was glad to get any money from him. The moral of the story? Never throw mail away until you at least open it and read it.