Not that it helps in his job. He never meets the people who ultimately provide his living - people with unpaid car loans or credit card bills. They only know him from his businesslike voice on the phone.

The voice is enough. It brings in about $1 million a year of unpaid debt, putting Boryszak among the stars at Account Solutions Group, an agency with 580 workers where some collectors earn six-figure checks.

A thick skin is required.

"I've been called a lot of different names in the book," the 38-year-old said. "I don't take it personal."

Debt collectors have a tough-guy image, and lately complaints about the industry have exploded. But the people making the calls reject the stereotype of a burly, cigar-chomping tyrant.

Collectors say they're just trying to make a living under sometimes extreme conditions. They're under pressure to bring in thousands of dollars a month without resorting to threats or snapping back at irate debtors.

"Rarely do I raise my voice," Boryszak says. "If it gets to that point, I get up and walk around."

The Tonawanda resident is one of the thousands of people who make Western New York a hub for debt collection. The industry journal Collections & Credit Risk recently profiled the area as a mecca, and the numbers bear out the claim.

Erie County had 3,600 collection jobs in 2004, putting it among industry centers like Houston and New York, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Add another 1,100 jobs at Pioneer Credit Recovery in Wyoming County.

Low rents and wage rates make Buffalo attractive for call center businesses, including collections. Beyond that, agencies here say they actually benefit from the region's harsh winters, which keep workers at their desks during tax refund time - prime time for collecting debts.

Area collectors "work paper" for retail chains, car finance companies and credit card issuers like Capital One and Bank of America. Agencies' help-wanted ads offer jobs with no experience necessary - sometimes to people who are "aggressive, assertive and $$$$$$$ hungry."

Former truck driver Jim Kuklewicz carved out a living as a collector when a layoff snuffed his job at a linen service in 1994.

"After a month I was ready to quit because I didn't think it was for me," he said. A manager turned him around and now, at age 46, he is a manager at Northstar Group in Amherst, making $70,000 to $100,000 a year.

Kuklewicz coaches struggling collectors to improve, and his advice is stern. "I tell everybody, "Leave your heart at the door. This is a business.' "

Some collectors say their companies boost results by tacitly encouraging hardball tactics beneath a facade of upright behavior.

When he went to work at Redline Recovery in Getzville, Frank J. Bennett received a squeaky clean telephone script to use with debtors.

That was in training. In reality, the rules against threats and harassment went out the window in the fervor to bring in money, the Youngstown man said.

"They're so hungry for profits they'll cut every corner," said Bennett, 44.

One collector urged a woman to get her son to pay his debt, Bennett said. Others mocked the spiritual message on a debtor's answering machine and used racial slurs in conversations that could be overheard by debtors, he said.

When Bennett objected, he was told to ignore what he overheard. He said he was fired in June after run-ins with managers, having failed to meet his monthly goal of $3,500.

Joseph Moran, head of the Georgia-based company's Amherst office, denied running roughshod over collection rules, saying that would put his company at risk.

"Our clients are national banks," he said. "If we get ourselves in trouble, they will pull their business."

Collectors' bland-looking call centers are really pressure cookers, workers say. While top performers earn big money, others burn out from sparring with debtors - or bail out after struggling to meet quotas. How much, or little, they have collected is displayed on white boards for co-workers to see.

"It's competitive," a Buffalo agency official said. "If your name's not up there, you've got some explaining to do."

At Account Solutions Group in Amherst, Boryszak watched batches of former co-workers fail. "You have to have - I don't want to say an edge - you have to have control of the conversation," he said.

On the first day of one recent month, he was at his cubicle before 8 a.m., getting ready to call 87 BMW drivers. Or rather, ex-drivers whose bimmers had been towed back to the lot. Boryszak's voice was hoarse, having worked the previous eight days leading up to the end-of-month "closeout," when bonuses are determined.

At the end of a month "I'm walking out of here thinking, "God, I'm beat' - then you come in the next day and you've got to start all over again."

- Fred O. Williams