331–340 of 568 posts
> you, reader, use credit cards in preference to debit cards as a payment instrument Reader from Europe here. I use debit cards for daily payments, that's just the most standard expected payment method in Europe (with mobile payments now replacing it. Is a mobile payment app more like a debit or like a credit card? I have no idea actually!). But credit cards for online payments on the internet because (despite some d…
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There is zero chance that I, a US resident, will ever use debit cards for anything. The reason is that in the event of a fraudulent charge (which still happens surprisingly often, given that chips were supposed to put an end to that): - With a debit card, I am out $X of my own money, until the bank can be bothered to agree that the charge is fraudulent and refund my money, which can take weeks or months, if at all. G…
> The reason is that in the event of a fraudulent charge Not sure if a fraudulent charge of a debit card is a thing I ever heard of in Europe. These cards have also been using chips for over 20 years. Maybe they work differently here. To me credit cards sound less secure than debit cards: debit cards have chips and pin codes. With credit cards, knowing the number is in theory enough (they have digital verification no…
A slightly different but similar issue is paying for services in advance but never rendered. When that happens on a credit card I just inform the card issuer and they handle it.
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…
There are some non-profits specializing in buying up medical debt and forgiving it (e.g. RIP Medical Debt [0]). These non-profits usually rely on individual donations, and $100 can relieve as much as $10,000 of medical debt. They also frequently rely on donations from other organizations such as churches [1]. There are examples of churches buying up tens of millions of dollars worth of debt [2]. I'm not aware of this…
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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…
Perhaps you have had a different experience but the IRS has always been polite and helpful in the few cases where I had income tax disputes. The key is to follow the process instead of trying to argue with bureaucrats or treat them as enemies. Compliance deadlines are measured in months. You have plenty of time to mail responses. Usually they'll put a hold on collection activities while you have a dispute pending.
But regardless of the politeness, the strategy is the same: get you to admit owing more taxes on your own, with the least amount of effort possible
It’s a known fact, and admitted by the IRS, that they go after easier targets (people with fewer resources that won’t fight them as much)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2023/01/29/the-irs-...
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-03-14/who-does-t...
https://reason.com/2012/07/13/californias-food-truck-shakedo...
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Don't give cash to addicts
Or people who are likely to be addicts, i.e. homeless people.
i think this confusion is something holding back progress on homelessness.
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If you want to buy a home you have to pay it, even if you’re past the seven years window. Or at least that’s what USAA did to us. I had a credit card debt of about $700 after a failed startup that, when I called TD, I was unable to pay. It was “written off.” The debt was from 2015 and I was purchasing a home in the spring of 2023 and despite the balance having been written off 8 years ago, USAA demanded it be settled…
This seems like pedantry on the USAA part. They should add some small fraction of a point to your rate and move on. I understand you probably get extra benefits with USAA but this would be an automatic disqualification for me and I’d move kn to a different servicer. However, that is _painful_ in the middle of a closing.
Our mortgage was immediately sold to another firm, so there’s no nicety on the part of having a consistent firm there. The process was painful, our processor was impossible to get in touch with, often a 48 hour lag for a reply.
Shortly before moving I was side-swiped by a man suffering a medical incident (diabetic coma after a blood draw) while at a red light. Our premium increased due to “driver history” a month later.
I’ve previously worked directly with USAA staff for due diligence when selling software / services to their firm and they are absolutely on the ball on that front. However, their actual software as an end-user is a hassle, e.g. password rules and UX that look about 25 years old at this point and suggest some languishing old mainframe.
Sweet, sweet inertia…
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A little over a decade ago I knew a young adult in the US that had a pretty rough life and I was trying to help her get back on her feet. When you’re homeless, it’s hard to get mail, and hard to keep your stuff; going from nothing to your standard documents is tricky. To get your birth certificate, you need to write a check to the state at some address where you’ll be able to receive mail in 2-4 weeks. Once you have…
> That’s important to keep in mind when you’re thinking about welfare bureaucracy or voter ID laws or anything like that. Amen to that. Though luckily while it's huge problem for the former, it doesn't matter for the latter. (Because individuals by and large don't benefit from being able to vote. Voting is at best something altruistic, individuals do out of civic duty.)
> you, reader, use credit cards in preference to debit cards as a payment instrument Reader from Europe here. I use debit cards for daily payments, that's just the most standard expected payment method in Europe (with mobile payments now replacing it. Is a mobile payment app more like a debit or like a credit card? I have no idea actually!). But credit cards for online payments on the internet because (despite some d…
The difference I see is that in Europe, at least where I live, at the end of the month the bank will charge your bank account with the full amount of whatever is the balance of your credit card. If you have no money you will go into overdraft and that’s about it, you basically have a problem and the bank will keep nagging about that overdraft if you don’t have an agreement. The goal is to use the “credit” of the cred…
On the Charge "credit" card you don't pay interest unless you go into overdraft at the end of the payment day for the month.
With the revolving credit you pay the balance on your own terms but you pay the interest rate for it until closed.
[1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/revolvingcredit.asp
It freaked me out at first, but I did some research and sent a debt validation letter with no reply. Of course, they were citing numbers like a $ 2,000 balance and threatening civil action all the way.
Now, it's a certainty that every few years I start getting the robo calls and have to track down the actual company. It's such a pain because I don't want to answer the phone but I need to get the actual account number and company (so many of these companies have similar names or could just be scams). So it's usually a case of my waiting until they leave a voicemail of the company and call it directly to get this info and send the letter.
It's getting harder. The last time it was voicemails from "MRS" which could be any of 3 companies. I eliminated two since I discovered they are local to other regions but for the life of me, I could not get what I needed from the supposed correct MRS. I'd call up, and one agent would say "Yes, we have your account but it's under a different name". Another would say "I'm not seeing your account". Sometimes they would try to transfer me to some other department only to drop the call.
I finally answered a call and validated my info to speak to the agent. I refused to acknowledge anything and only asked for my account number in their records, the delinquent account they were calling about and their address to send mail to. The agent gave me what must be a bogus number since I can lookup what an MRS account number should look like. I also offered to validate my current address if they would send me anything in the mail. They refused and said "My client will be pursuing civil legal action" and hung up. I did get in there that I do not want calls and to please mail me anything from now on in the call.
I ended up filing a Consumer Finance Protection Department complaint. I'm aware the agent violated a few things, like threatening legal action they don't intend to pursue and not validating those info points.
Can anyone recommend a good call recorder for iPhone? Also, I assume I'd need to inform them it's being recorded since I don't know from where they are calling.
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Or people who are likely to be addicts, i.e. homeless people.
if you're talking about the random person that approaches you on the street, then yes, that's a high possibility. but there are homeless that are not addicts and don't necessarily live on the streets. i think this confusion is something holding back progress on homelessness.