<prompt> Human: First off, sorry if this isnt the appropriate subReddit. Ill try to be brief - through a series of dumb choices in my late teens I owe 100-200 to the library, and no unfortunately I lost the books. Since the collections agency that handles this has recently started to contact me, I want to get this taken care of now, before it further effects my credit negatively. However, Im confused by what Ive read about Unique National Collections, and am unsure as to how best to proceed. Anyone had experience with this companylibrary fines?  <response>: Go back to the library and ask if you can replace the books. Sometimes you can purchase new books from Amazon that have the same ISBN, and usually a processing fee to the library used to cover the staff cost of re-jacketing, barcoding, cataloging, etc. and that will be as good as paying the fine. Since the price they are charging you is usually the cost of the books when they bought them, you can usually find them much cheaper than they paid for them, even including shipping. A lost book costing you 25.50 plus 10.00 to replace is 35.50, but if you find it on Amazon for 5.00 plus 3.99 shipping is saving you about 15. Per book. Another opportunity to save--My library will not charge late fines on items you end up replacing, double-dipping so you can end up saving quite a bit if those are tacked on too. I dont know if your library handles things the same way, but we use the same collection agency, so its possible.ERBlackw is right about being courteous and apologetic though...if you come in with an attitude, you are paying full price or getting nowhere. Also, while its true fines are sometimes able to be waived or negotiated, once its gone to collections, IE, fines are more than 55 with items outstanding you have to pay the account to zero...no get-out-of-jail-free waive options there. At least at my librarySource: I manage a library.Edit: Fixed some typing impediments. 