The doctor hands them over, and the banker sorts out some of the best, remarking, “I’ll take this lot at 8 per cent.”
“Oh, no. I don’t care to dispose of them in that way. It’s a case of all or none. I might better take a chance on them all than to have the best culled out.”
It usually ends in the banker taking the entire lot at 10 per cent. He will collect every dollar on them, and the doctor has got rid of a lot of paper on which he would have hard work in getting half of its face value. This plan seldom fails when carried out in the right way.
There is one class of notes on which the signers rarely make a contest. These are the ones given in payment for sexual treatment. A physician is, as a rule, safe in taking a note under these conditions as he can usually collect the full amount. Men are delicate about this trouble and don’t want their friends and neighbors to know what they have been treated for. To resist payment means a law suit in which the physician will go on the stand and, under the questioning of his attorney, bring out the fact that John Jones, the maker of the note, gave it in payment of treatment for prostratitis, or some other sexual ailment. Pressed for details he lays bare the whole facts of the case to the intense mortification of Jones.
The doctor, of course, could decline to answer such questions on the ground that it would be a violation of the confidence existing between a physician and his patient, but he doesn’t want to do so. He’s there to collect that note, and in furtherance of this purpose he has posted his attorney in advance as to the questions to be asked.
Most men of sense know this and will pay their notes, regardless of whether they have been helped or not, rather than submit to the humiliation which they know will be heaped on them when the doctor takes the stand.
The hardest notes to collect are those given in payment for the treatment of ailments other than sexual disorders. But even these, if made out in the manner outlined in the opening part of this chapter, can be realized on in full. Suppose a man living in Iowa gives a note of this kind to a Chicago physician. The latter discounts it immediately at his local bank which takes it, not because the maker is known, but on account of the doctor’s endorsement. Just before maturity the note is forwarded to the maker’s local bank for collection. The local banker notifies the maker that it holds the note, which will be due on such a day. What does the maker do? Why, he antes, of course. The note is in the hands of his local banker, a person with whom he is anxious to preserve his credit. In such a case, with the note drawn to the order of the signer and endorsed by him, there can be no plea of “no value received.” Besides, the obligation is in the hands of an innocent holder before maturity.
Beware of collection agents who want to take your claims on a percentage commission. Most of them will deal with you honestly at first on small accounts, and then get away with the entire proceeds of a big claim. A few years ago a Chicago physician gave a number of ordinary bills to a local collection agency for which he was to receive the amount of the collections less 25 per cent., the agency to stand all costs. The agency did good work, made satisfactory settlements, and finally the doctor gave them a note for $700 which he held against a man in another state. It was to be collected on the same basis—25 per cent. After several months of delay the agency advised the doctor that a compromise could be made at $400. The doctor authorized its acceptance. More months rolled by, and, being unable to get word of any kind from the agency, the doctor wrote direct to the local banker in the town where the maker of the note lived. The banker replied, saying that the note had been paid in full ($700 and interest) several months before, and it was then in his possession cancelled.
Since then this physician has had his own collector, under bond from a guarantee company, and gets whatever money may be taken in by him. It is possible that the physician might have prosecuted the agency, but here again he would have been in a dilemma. If he brought a criminal action it would not get him any money, and if he proceeded civilly the members of the agency were execution proof—they had nothing which could be levied upon. In either event, in order to prove payment, he would have to bring the banker here at his own expense—provided he was willing to come—so he concluded to drop the matter and accept it as a costly lesson.