Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to become a debt buyer

coda.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 83 posts

Re: How to become a debt buyer

#11

Post by hinkley »

alexb_ wrote: post #9

It's extremely unfortunate that a lot of our society has bundled together the ideas of "Unethical" and "Profitable" so much that people are attracted to evil industries taking advantage of the poor, because they think it will get them a lot of money. Can't wait until this shit is pushed onto a bunch of zoomers who are looking for the next way to get rich without doing any actual work.

I think it was David Brin who had a character who believed that it’s not that power corrupts, but that it attracts the corruptible.

Re: How to become a debt buyer

#12

Post by tptacek »

This is currently, and for obvious reasons, trending towards a thread about how evil the debt collection industry is. That's a shame, because there's a lot of interesting stuff to learn from the mechanics of the debt collection business, and it's stuff you can put to use to protect yourself (and others) from its worst abuses. There are "is" arguments and there are "oughts". We probably all agree on the "oughts", at least for the high-order bits of it, but isn't there some interesting "is" stuff to talk about?

I'd read this stuff the same way I'd read a HOWTO posted on a carder forum. We probably wouldn't waste our time with a huge thread about how evil carding is; we'd read it for interest, to see how a distributed criminal conspiracy functioned. We should try that here too.

Re: How to become a debt buyer

#13

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

melenaboija wrote: post #7
traceroute66 wrote: post #3

Yeah, erm, no, just NO. Unless we're talking about A-grade corporate or government debt. Which isn't guaranteed, of course, but at least its a relatively sensible area to dabble in if you want to play the game. Anything else, whether "junk bonds" or any of the more "exotic" items listed in this blog post are the sort of thing you should not touch with the proverbial bargepole. Why ? Because there is a reason those so…

I am not sure your comment adds anything other than what your gut says. This is simply a market with expectations, you can take it or leave it. A completely different topic is the morality and the role of regulators in it.

> This article is for anyone who may be interested in getting into the debt collection industry and wants to learn some basic information about buying debt.

It seems to me their comment was also written for "anyone who may be interested in getting into the debt collection industry". Hard to see how it's off-topic. One might argue that such people "should already know" these things if they're interested but how are they going to know if nobody says it?

Re: How to become a debt buyer

#14

Post by omginternets »

tptacek wrote: post #12

This is currently, and for obvious reasons, trending towards a thread about how evil the debt collection industry is. That's a shame, because there's a lot of interesting stuff to learn from the mechanics of the debt collection business, and it's stuff you can put to use to protect yourself (and others) from its worst abuses. There are "is" arguments and there are "oughts". We probably all agree on the "oughts", at l…

>there's a lot of interesting stuff to learn from the mechanics of the debt collection business

I'm intrigued. Can you elaborate?

Re: How to become a debt buyer

#15

Post by p0pcult »

ipython wrote: post #10
Finnucane wrote: post #4

Ask yourself: Am I ready to be a bottom feeder on the lowest rung of society, rifling through garbage in the hopes of squeezing some poor schlub out of a few bucks?

I’m tempted to do this, just to then turn around and send a letter to the debtors saying that I will take no attempts to collect this debt and you do not need to pay.

There is a church doing exactly that with medical debt:

https://www.wxow.com/news/a-church-is-canceling-peoples-medi...

Re: How to become a debt buyer

#16

Post by alexb_ »

tptacek wrote: post #12

This is currently, and for obvious reasons, trending towards a thread about how evil the debt collection industry is. That's a shame, because there's a lot of interesting stuff to learn from the mechanics of the debt collection business, and it's stuff you can put to use to protect yourself (and others) from its worst abuses. There are "is" arguments and there are "oughts". We probably all agree on the "oughts", at l…

I would be interested if they at least said "Yeah, we're shitbags, but that's just how it is, and someone's gotta collect delinquent debt". What I'm not okay with is putting in shit like this:

> The Debt Buying and Debt Collection industries can be a very rewarding career if it's right for you. It is also a risky business to be in and has a somewhat negative connotation among some groups because of a few people/companies that have exploited the industries for personal gain or because of a general lack of understanding of the laws or regulations in place for consumer protection. Be mindful of who you deal with and always practice honest, legal and ethical business to help prevent any further negative stereotypes from being cast over this industry.

It's not a negative stereotype, and it's not because of a "few people". It's the facts. Don't pretend like you're doing something noble here.

Re: How to become a debt buyer

#17

Post by vitruvian_man »

traceroute66 wrote: post #3

Yeah, erm, no, just NO. Unless we're talking about A-grade corporate or government debt. Which isn't guaranteed, of course, but at least its a relatively sensible area to dabble in if you want to play the game. Anything else, whether "junk bonds" or any of the more "exotic" items listed in this blog post are the sort of thing you should not touch with the proverbial bargepole. Why ? Because there is a reason those so…

People got greedy and started re-packaging sub-prime loans due to financial engineering enabled by the ratings agencies, which were greatly influenced by the erroneous notion that "housing always goes up" and incentive to collect for each CDO rating they opined upon.

Re: How to become a debt buyer

#18

Post by WirelessGigabit »

Watching the video that is linked on that page.

at 2:30 he states "anytime that somebody says that they've already paid a debt that you have in your make sure that you have them send you a letter and make sure you specify that you need a release letter..."

How about you prove that I actually owe the debt and then we'll talk.

Re: How to become a debt buyer

#19

Post by p0pcult »

tptacek wrote: post #12

This is currently, and for obvious reasons, trending towards a thread about how evil the debt collection industry is. That's a shame, because there's a lot of interesting stuff to learn from the mechanics of the debt collection business, and it's stuff you can put to use to protect yourself (and others) from its worst abuses. There are "is" arguments and there are "oughts". We probably all agree on the "oughts", at l…

>That's a shame

Is it a shame? Could the guy instead have written an article entitled, "How to Protect Yourself (and Others) From the Worst Abuses of Debt Collectors"?

Re: How to become a debt buyer

#20

Post by alexb_ »

hinkley wrote: post #11
alexb_ wrote: post #9

It's extremely unfortunate that a lot of our society has bundled together the ideas of "Unethical" and "Profitable" so much that people are attracted to evil industries taking advantage of the poor, because they think it will get them a lot of money. Can't wait until this shit is pushed onto a bunch of zoomers who are looking for the next way to get rich without doing any actual work.

I think it was David Brin who had a character who believed that it’s not that power corrupts, but that it attracts the corruptible.

I think there exists a group of people who are actually attracted to doing things that are unethical because the association in a lot of business that unethical = profitable can create some really strong priors. Like, if something is unethical, it will make some people more interested than if it was ethical, because they've associated unethical business with incredible profits.
Post reply on HN