Jono, Ben & Megan - The Podcast - The Burner Phone 27: The Debt Collectors Are On Us..

Episode Date: May 24, 2023

Call Jono & Ben's Burner Phone on 027 2633 285 and leave your message now and they will answer it on the podcast!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Hits with Jono and Ben's Burnaphone. Welcome to the Burnaphone, kia ora. Great to have you here, Jono here, Ben over there. The critically acclaimed, award-winning, Nobel Peace Prize nominated Burnaphone is back. Yeah, we like to clear a message every day. You can leave us a message, we're getting through the messages, but there's still space, it hasn't clogged up for the last week or so. So if you want to leave us a message, text BERNA to 4487. We'll flick you back the number and you can call up and leave us a message.

Whatever you want. You want to ask us something, you want to say something, it's yours. This is yours. The opportunity to dictate what we talk about on the podcast. Now, can I just veer off before we get to today's message, Ben? We just had an interview. We recorded an interview with the wonderful Madeline Sami. Yeah.

A very talented actor, comedian, writer, you name it, and Madeline's done it. Circus performer? What's that, sorry? Circus performer. Don't name that.

Don't name that. Name something else. Checkout operator. No, don't name that. Don't name that. Primary school educator. You should probably stop naming things.

You name it, she's got it. She's probably played roles of all those things. She's a very good actor and writer. Very funny. We just spoke to her and I just ploughed back a coffee. God forbid. And then we had a photo with her. So Madeline's in the middle.

You know the classic radio show photo. Look who we've got in the studio. And then i turned to her and i was talking she was asking me a question then i was talking directly at her close proximity very self-aware and conscious of my coffee breath yeah yeah now can i blow my breath on you and can you tell me if it's like if you have to you can okay but um but if you know coming over to do it you know two years ago with covenants here mate you would be oh uh you know definitely some coffee in there is there yeah but but you know that you know when you've got that taste of you know that's why dilma tea is the best mate so you're not gonna have that

issue would you what is that a lovely you've had going to have that, are you? You wouldn't have a problem with Dilmar tea, would you? You've had your Dilmar tea today, haven't you? What is that, a lovely chamomile tea? Yeah, we have the one with the green tea, with the lemon. It's nice. I feel healthier having tea. You do, yeah. Anyway, today's message, here we go. From the Burner Phone voicemail.

This is an important message from Milton Graham. Please visit our website at www.miltongraham.co.nz or return this call on 0800 762 762. When you call, please quote reference number 4762. Thank you. Okay, now the debt collectors are on us. Okay, so what's happened here? Someone very clever played in with the debt collectors and given our number

as a decoy. Great, and you can use this number as a decoy. I think you've said that before in the past, haven't you? Like if you want to get out of something, you want to give a number to something. Awkward date? Yeah, you can go, here's my number, give us a call. We should catch up sometime, give us a call. Yeah, catch up sometime, give us a call. Yeah, those ones when you see people from school in the supermarket

and you're like, oh, we should catch up, and you're really at the back of your mind going, we have already. Yeah, we've already caught up. Have you accrued a debt before? Have I accrued a debt? Well, you just got a parking ticket before, didn't you? But sometimes it goes through to the next round, not Milton, Bradley, or whoever they are.

They go to Baycorp and stuff. Baycorp, another debt collection agency. Yeah. Well, the processes I've since discovered is... How's it work? How's the process work? Okay. You get a ticket.

I, innocent person, innocent motorist, parks on side of road that his rates, no doubt, helped pay for. Okay, this is the first step. Starting to sound like a boomer but anyway cantankerous boomer i pay my rates so i could sleep in my car in a bus lane correct and innocent

motorists figures he's given enough to the city that maybe he should be allowed to park here and there for free the council don't agree they don't. I get a ticket. Wayne Brown and his mob. I get a ticket. Generally, it's handed over by someone in the office with a big smile on their face going, here's another one. Got one today. I ignore it. Get another one.

A bit more threatening. So they give you two. They give you a reminder. Yeah, like, hey, by the way, don't forget this. Yeah. And I'm like, oh, I probably will. And then you get a third letter. Third letter's got a big red thing like saying, urgent, must open.

They give you a three. They do give you three chances. Three strikes. That's very generous, isn't it? If you ignore that, what happens is it enters the New Zealand judicial system. So this is like, let's say, it could be a $12 ticket. It seems to start about $12, right? Then once it goes through the courts, you include court costs.

Because, I mean, they're not free. Judges, court staff. Have you gone to the courts for it? I've done that before, yeah. Once that's all gone, they're like, there's no hope. This guy is absolutely useless. Bay court. Awesome.

That's where it gets my attention. Now, can you fight it? Like, could we hire, it would be a huge waste of money, but could we hire a lawyer to get you off the $12 ticket? Like a Queen's Council or something? Yeah, like, okay, we're going to. you off the 12 ticket like a queen's council yeah like we go okay we're gonna we're gonna yeah like could you could you pay for the lawyer like well i don't know like let's just say we decided radio but decided as a radio but to get you off a ticket could we do that could you like do you actually know do you get a court thing or is it just go

through the court system probably more goes through the system oh you're saying can we turn up for the case we're not going to be in front of a judge. Plead your case. Get to decide. We'll come out of the courtroom and go, no good guys. No good.

$12 fine plus the lawyer cost us $4,000. Sounds like a great exercise. It would be quite an interesting experiment. Can we get him off of

$12,000? Because no one's ever going to expect you're going to fight it with a lawyer. But can I just go in now and say, I'm completely guilty? Like, I parked my car. Yeah, but we'll find one loophole to get you off.

We'll work hard on something. And then we'll be like, okay. He served his time in the community. Yeah, get in there and try and get you off it. That'd be a fun little exercise. That'd be a fun exercise. Very expensive. It would be.

It would be totally not worth it you might as well just pay the $12 fine so then you get court fees you have to pay on top of that and then have you always paid I guess yeah once it gets to Bay Corp

I'm like okay you've had your fun you've had your fun you've had a good time and I've got a lot of unnecessary fines added to the just the $12 ticket

you know but it's it's the life man it's the it's the life, man. What's the biggest debt you've accrued? Not your mortgage or? Oh, student loan was very pricey.

Three years of broadcasting school in Christchurch plus living, like just being able to exist. There was a great line at that stage that, yes, it came off your loan, but you'd have your student loan would pay for stuff and then you'd be able to get some money off it but there was another line you could ring up wouldn't even have to talk to anyone and you could also just punch in a number and get some money put in and form your thing to your bank account the next day I was like oh very tight like as a student you know and now I look back you know where it's fun times and also you know I bought like a VHS player a couch I don't have you know things like that

you're like oh why did I do that did you need a VHS player well I wanted to play some VHS's at the time I think it was or it was a DVD maybe it was a DVD player

actually it was a DVD player I don't think it was that dated it was New Tech I wanted a DVD player to play some newfangled DVDs.

And so if you took away all of the excess goods that you purchased and nights out you went on, if you took that away, how much would your student loan have been? If you're just like, I'm just down here, do the course. Oh, it still would have been a bit for living, like actual living. But yeah. But hey, you started. You started your job

and you were like you know tens of thousands of dollars behind the start line financially but I worked my way through it that's paid off now some people get away with just not paying it don't they I know I don't know how yeah they move overseas I think I think you get overseas you're out of the you're out of the system but I haven't I haven't done that so so you could get a big student loan just scarper yeah but I feel like they'll track you down now. I feel like there's some news about that, but we could try that. I think the parking fine court thing's probably a little cheaper. There you go.

Whoever is on the run from Milton Graham Debt Collection Agency, good play. Good play. Well done. Yeah. Hope you continue to evade them. We might get a debt collector turning up here one day going, aren't you a debt collector? Yeah.

Dennis. Oh, I remember Dennis. Dennis the debt collector. Yeah, yeah. He was like, if you imagine, a wonderful guy, a true gentleman, but if you imagined what a debt collector would look like, Dennis was the perfect debt collector. Like if he showed up at your door, you'd be like, yep.

Oh, yep, I'm handing you the money. Okay, things have really got out of hand. How much do you need? Dear God, how can I pay this debt off? Yes, yep. Oh, yep. I'm handing you the money. Okay. Things have really got out of hand. How much do you need? Dear God, how can I pay this debt off? Yes, Dennis. What a job.

I could not, I mean, look, I don't have the frame for that job, but also the backbone for that job. Just knocking on the door going, hello. You owe a lot of money.

I'm here to get it. And he's, he had some really fun stories because people try and avoid Dennis. Yeah. I'd imagine. If you knew a guy called Dennis, obviously. Yeah, I'd imagine that. If you knew a guy called Dennis the Debt Collector was after you, you're trying to avoid it.

And so he would have to catch them out unawares, you know. Oh, what are you doing? You're heading to the coffee club, are you? He sits at the table next to you. Oh, did he do that? Yeah, he would do things like that. Yeah, it was a really, really interesting. We should get him on to talk about it.

Yeah, that's a great idea. All right. Dennis the Debt Collector. Yeah, I haven't seen him in years. We'll get him on the burner phone. Yes, we will. We should get him on to talk about it. Yeah, that's a great idea. All right. Dennis the Declare. Yeah, I haven't seen him in years. We'll get him on the Burner phone. Yes, we will. We will. We'll follow up. Anyway, that was today's episode of the Burner phone.

Keep running. Thelma and Louise style, whoever that person was. If you want to join the Burner phone podcast, text Burner phone to 4487 and we'll send you our digits. You could be on tomorrow's episode.