I dispute this statement that debt collectors are good people.
I had a collections agency pursue me for over 3 years over a debt that wasn't mine. It started off with a telephone call asking for a name who has never lived here (I've lived here for 40+ years), then they asked my name "for our records to show who we spoke to", that sounded reasonable, so I gave it.
All of a sudden they were pursuing the same debt, but with my name instead. It took a year of lawyers letters being exchanged before they admitted they were pursuing the wrong person, and dropped it.