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Credit card debt collection

bitsaboutmoney.com

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Re: Credit card debt collection

#61

Post by candiddevmike »

dylan604 wrote: post #58
smeej wrote: post #37

Weren't there reports back in the Occupy Wall Street days of people organizing to buy up debt like this and then just forgive it all? It sounds like debts are sold in such bulk that there's no way to do something very targeted, like starting an org in your town to buy debt from your ZIP and collecting contributions to cancel your neighbors' debts, but if these debts are already only worth 5¢ on the dollar to the sell…

I never heard of buying credit debt, but I had heard of people buying medical debt in this manner. I get and respect the medical debt concept. Credit debt though is a tough one. How can you tell that someone ran up credit debt because they were paying for medical bills or something vs debt financing shopping sprees or vacations? Giving those who fall on hard times help is admirable. Giving people bad at personal fina…

Medical debt shouldn't be a thing in a civilized society. Credit card debt is a failure of the financial system to properly assess risk, credit cards shouldn't be that easy to get, and predatory credit card offers should be outlawed. Similar to how identity theft is somehow your problem when it's actually the banks and other systems that enable it.

Re: Credit card debt collection

#62

Post by SilasX »

khuey wrote: post #39
sschnei8 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Anyone who has ever interacted with the US health care system knows that getting an accurate quote in advance is nearly impossible.

I’ve had one retroactively up a pre-declared price on me, after the service was rendered, even when insurance wasn’t involved at all.

Re: Credit card debt collection

#64

Post by owenmarshall »

dylan604 wrote: post #58
smeej wrote: post #37

Weren't there reports back in the Occupy Wall Street days of people organizing to buy up debt like this and then just forgive it all? It sounds like debts are sold in such bulk that there's no way to do something very targeted, like starting an org in your town to buy debt from your ZIP and collecting contributions to cancel your neighbors' debts, but if these debts are already only worth 5¢ on the dollar to the sell…

I never heard of buying credit debt, but I had heard of people buying medical debt in this manner. I get and respect the medical debt concept. Credit debt though is a tough one. How can you tell that someone ran up credit debt because they were paying for medical bills or something vs debt financing shopping sprees or vacations? Giving those who fall on hard times help is admirable. Giving people bad at personal fina…

This strikes me as the same as saying “but the homeless person might take my $5 to buy whiskey instead of a hot meal.”

Or, possibly more apropos to your example, “how do I know my medical debt relief payment goes to someone who truly Deserves It because of bad luck and not someone whose poor diet and exercise habits lead to their stroke?”

The system is designed to turn bad choices into bad luck - and the opposite - and to pass moral judgements on those who need help. Reject the framing and help people; most are good and deserving.

Re: Credit card debt collection

#65

Post by lokar »

nico wrote: post #60
eru wrote: post #36

> I will bet you that, in practice, they simply avoid collecting against anyone who demonstrates ability and financial resources to enforce their rights. This is one for the history books of borked equilibriums. We devoted substantial efforts to pro-consumer legislation to address abuse of (mostly) poor people. We gated redress behind labor that is abundantly available in the professional managerial class and scarce…

This is the same with tax collection in the US (seen different versions of this done by IRS, California’s BOE and SF treasury) It goes something like this: they send you a scary looking letter telling you there’s something off about your taxes, you then need to call them (because they don’t do email and mailing anything will go over the time limit to comply), then they tell you more in detail what the problem is and…

This happened to me. I sent the letter to my CPA, he realized he made an error and in fact the IRS owed me a bunch of money, which they returned.

Re: Credit card debt collection

#66

Post by dylan604 »

owenmarshall wrote: post #64
dylan604 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never heard of buying credit debt, but I had heard of people buying medical debt in this manner. I get and respect the medical debt concept. Credit debt though is a tough one. How can you tell that someone ran up credit debt because they were paying for medical bills or something vs debt financing shopping sprees or vacations? Giving those who fall on hard times help is admirable. Giving people bad at personal fina…

This strikes me as the same as saying “but the homeless person might take my $5 to buy whiskey instead of a hot meal.” Or, possibly more apropos to your example, “how do I know my medical debt relief payment goes to someone who truly Deserves It because of bad luck and not someone whose poor diet and exercise habits lead to their stroke?” The system is designed to turn bad choices into bad luck - and the opposite - a…

If you want to think of me in that tone, then fine, but I never caveated the medical debt. As the sibling comment to you said, medical debt in a civilized society is just wrong. So I really don't care why the medical care was needed. Helping people out of debt for medical reasons is commendable.

The thing I specifically caveated was people making bad financial decisions on their own. Sure, maybe giving an 18 year old $5k credit limit is not a smart thing on the creditor's part, but not everyone financing retail therapy sessions via credit is an 18 year old. The whole 30 thousandaire outspending their earnings for FOMO or keeping up with the Joneses or whatever does not seem like something we need to bail out.

Re: Credit card debt collection

#67

Post by analyte123 »

patio11’s prior writing on this topic helped give me the knowledge and fortitude to successfully dispute several thousand dollars of fraudulent claims that Enterprise rental cars tried to collect from me. As he alluded to, my high-FICO self felt morally bound to settle and pay for the dented bumper, but they definitely violated the FDCPA and some CFPB rules (in writing!), which I enumerated for them. Maybe if I went “all the way” I could have paid $0 and gotten on the litigious debtor scrub list, but I worried that could somehow have been held against me in the future.

Re: Credit card debt collection

#69

Post by aketchum »

Article is great, (with it being written by pat mckenzie that is almost tautological)

> The value of portfolios is a huge discount to the face value of the debts; at the point where a lender has only worked it themselves and the debt is a few months delinquent, portfolios generally fetch about 5 cents on the dollar. That value will continue to decay over time.

I agree with his point directionally (the value of the sold debt is far below the face value of the balance) but he is off on the absolute value. You can expect more like 7-15% after working the account for 4-5 months.

> Debts are conveyed to the debt buyers as large CSV files with minimal supporting documentation.

This is funny - it is true that just big ole csv files (only ever opened in excel of course) are the way the debt is sold but how else would you suggest it be done? And in my experience you provide the debt collections agency all supporting contracts and account documents for each loan.

Re: Credit card debt collection

#70

Post by ncallaway »

doubleg72 wrote: post #22
abxytg wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are my hero

[flagged]

> nothing better than someone who agrees to a service then decides later that they aren’t going to pay because now the deal is “unfair.”

I would agree for any medical transaction where the price for the service was disclosed prior to the transaction. Hell, I’d even agree if an estimate with a low and a high range were provided.

I don’t know about you, but in my lifetime the number of times this has happened rounds to 0%. And I ask for the price at a rate significantly higher than the average medical consumer.

So, since the entire industry has completely and totally failed at price transparency, then I’m completely on the side of someone who makes this decision.

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