If you're hiding, you're not very good at it

Several times I ended up talking to people who claimed to be in hiding from people. Ex-husbands, family, and people who wanted to do them harm. I even had one guy who claimed to be in super-secret hiding from the mob - for him, I had a simple answer: If you're hiding from the Mob, don't list your phone number in the White Pages, cause that's where I found you.

I often felt bad for those who were in hiding from an ex-husband, because people who try to hide often aren't willing to go full out to do what it takes to drop off the map. So they still have searchable work, relatives, and other trails that bill collectors can find. And when we find them, they spook. I had one borrower who I was working with her mother on getting her a hardship program, but I have no idea what happened.

There were two interesting hiding cases I remember. A colleague of mine called a neighbor to pass the message on to the borrower, and she called back to give her an earful. And this is the approximation of it:

She was on the run from her abusive husband who had threatened to kill her and her children. We had actually called her mother's neighbors, as that was where she got her mail, but she was hiding even there. She didn't even KNOW the neighbors - they just randomly came over and handed her the message.

And now we had blown her cover, and put her children at risk, and they might all die next week just so we could collect a couple of bucks. And how did we feel about that?

My poor colleague was all worked up, but I asked her if the borrower was so stealthy, how did the neighbors know who she was to pass on the message? My colleague did say that the neighbors had nothing nice to say about her (and their kids played together), so she was obviously known. I also pointed out that if the threat really were that serious, one should consider relocating a little further away than 20 miles. Or getting police protection.

Or, when you are offered a hardship arrangement on your loans, you call back. Which is what she failed to do.

The other one was much more interesting. It was an 'open season' new buisness account on a Sunday, and a ridiculously high balance. I did some poking around with the databases, and found there was no record for the borrower after 2005. However, there was an associate who was supposely in his 80s who had no record prior to 2005, and had the same last name as the prior city the borrower had lived in.

It piqued my interest, and I copied the associates phone number...only to realize a colleague had called and left a message a half hour before. So it was a matter of a call back.

Which came. Apparently from a voice that sounded much younger than 80's, screaming that he didn't know anyone by that name, and there wasn't anyone by that name in the system - there couldn't be. The borrower was gone, had been for years.

"But I thought you didn't know him?"

"Ap...erp...don't call here again." *click*

I poked at it a bit more and found an address to check out the following day, and wrote down the number.

When I got in, the account was gone. Removed entirely from the system. Which is amazing, as any account being removed usually takes at least 24 hours to vanish. So I asked the manager.

"Yeah, I was told someone at the big office removed the account. No explanation - just said the account's going, and make sure you don't call anyone about the account. Never had that happen before."

And somewhere, someone is looking over his shoulder a little more carefully. Because if WE found him....