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

Credit card debt collection

bitsaboutmoney.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 568 posts

Re: Credit card debt collection

#351

Post by jollyllama »

pjc50 wrote: post #220
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, it also means things like getting denied for jobs and apartments. Car loans will be more: You might not be able to easily buy a new car. And that's not even getting into some of the other random things. You'll need to pay upfront to replace the washer that went out instead of financing - unless that financing is through one of the rent-to-own places (which still might be cheaper than going to the pay laund…

How on earth can people be denied jobs for poor credit? You're not a creditor to your employer! Isn't this just the "social credit" system that people worry about in China, except privatised?

Yes, but people love cheap debt, so it stays.

Re: Credit card debt collection

#352

Post by ToucanLoucan »

elteto wrote: post #349
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s not a problem of capitalism, it’s a problem of reality. I'm really not sure about that. > Of course it requires debt relief, things go _wrong_ all the time, that’s just life and how the world works. Yet funnily enough the people on top of all these vast structures sail away from their sinking ships on parachutes of gold (if they're even sinking: a lot of times they just sit and collect vast sums of unearned we…

I think you mistook my comment as a defense of capitalism. Although I do believe a system based on private property and individual freedom is superior to the alternative, I wasn’t making that statement. I was just pointing out something at a much lower level: we need debt relief because we don’t live in a perfect world, things go south and we need for people to be able to move on. That’s it. We could talk about the i…

Ah that's very fair. My apologies.

Re: Credit card debt collection

#353

Post by giraffe_lady »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #346
bettercallsalad wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am far from religious, but one thing most religious traditions have common is how they ban usury/interest which would make much of global finance we have today “haram”. You can see the reverse effect too not only at an individual but collective level. Once the religious ethos disappears from a sect, widespread adoption of debt becomes the norm.

But debt and interest are both sound concepts, and both are critical towards building an advanced society. Being able to borrow money from the future is enormously powerful.

All forms of exploitation are incredibly valuable for those with the power to benefit from them.

Re: Credit card debt collection

#354

Post by Broken_Hippo »

pjc50 wrote: post #220
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, it also means things like getting denied for jobs and apartments. Car loans will be more: You might not be able to easily buy a new car. And that's not even getting into some of the other random things. You'll need to pay upfront to replace the washer that went out instead of financing - unless that financing is through one of the rent-to-own places (which still might be cheaper than going to the pay laund…

How on earth can people be denied jobs for poor credit? You're not a creditor to your employer! Isn't this just the "social credit" system that people worry about in China, except privatised?

I applied for a job at a gas station in the late 90's. The store manager had to get permission to run a credit check that I needed for the job: The dude explained that folks with bad credit were more likely to steal from the company.

Which isn't true, of course, and they had other ways to check for theft - but this didn't stop them.

Re: Credit card debt collection

#355

Post by Broken_Hippo »

jiofj wrote: post #256
krapp wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone with poor credit may be assumed more likely to commit fraud or steal from the company. Someone with poor credit might also be assumed to be personally irresponsible and lazy, and more likely to slack off, ignore necessary details or cut corners. It isn't fair but in the US money carries moral weight, and many people assume the less of it you have, the worse of a person you are.

>It isn't fair but in the US money carries moral weight, and many people assume the less of it you have, the worse of a person you are. This isn't about money, this is about debt. Owing money around really does sound like something a bad person would do.

It isn't about owing money or even debt. You can be in a lot of debt and have good credit. You can also have very little debt and have very poor credit because you couldn't pay a hospital bill or didn't get the final electric bill from your old apartment paid before it went to collections.

It is really about keeping poor people out. You might be able to argue something about responsibility if you can prove that they could pay the debt and chose not to.

Re: Credit card debt collection

#356

Post by hiatus »

DoubleGlazing wrote: post #315

There was a case a few year back around the time of the 2008 recession where a man in debt used the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act to earn a decent living from their aggressive/dishonest practices. I did try Googling for the story, but I could find it. His process was to let them lie to him - he even encouraged it, all while he was recording the call. After the call ended he'd launch a legal claim for compensatio…

Seems like that might not be possible these days.

> On June 25, 2021, the Supreme Court of the United States held that a plaintiff must suffer a concrete injury resulting from a defendant’s statutory violation to have Article III standing to pursue damages from that defendant in federal court. The Court also held that plaintiffs in a class action must prove that every class member has standing for each claim asserted and for each form of relief sought.

https://consumerfsblog.com/2021/06/supreme-court-substantial...

Re: Credit card debt collection

#357

Post by Reason077 »

differentView wrote: post #196
Reason077 wrote: post #177

One thing that's not mentioned in this article is that credit card companies will sometimes make last-ditch "clear your debt at a discount" offers before passing your debt on to a collection agency. This happened to me many years ago. In the wake of the '08 financial crisis, I'd lost my job abruptly and decided to go travelling. I'd accumulated a balance that was fairly substantial for me at the time (on the order of…

What bank was it? Have you tried getting a credit card with them since? If so, were you successful?

MBNA Canada. And no.

Re: Credit card debt collection

#358

Post by bluGill »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #139
cortesoft wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that line stood out to me... I don't know how many of those high FICO score people pay because of morality verse how many pay because they want to continue to have access to lower cost debt that having a high FICO score gets you.

Well, challenging the debt on legal grounds shouldn't negatively impact your FICO score. Presumably also if enough people broke this system, debt collection would be forced to change in a way that made it harder for people to do this. It is perhaps better if people who can manage to pay it do, so people who can't retain the ability to exploit the bad recordkeeping in the system as it is today?

Eventually your challenge (assuming you win) will have any negatives removed from your FICO score, but it may remain for a time while the challenge is in process and during that time you don't have the high score. Worse the lower score may mean other changes to your behavior that affect your credit indirectly - if you don't take out a loan you would have for example.

Re: Credit card debt collection

#359

Post by cm2012 »

ars wrote: post #24
cm2012 wrote: post #11

Off topic: I've ignored any medical bills I thought were unfair for 12+ years. It's probably over $10k in bills altogether. It's never shown up on my credit reports though (I check often and bought a house last year). So your results may vary. In the mean time I just throw out the debt collector bills as I get them.

I've done the same, with the same results, because I've rarely come across a medical bill that is actually correct. I'll call the provider once and explain what's wrong with the bill. Either they fix it, or I ignore them completely after that. Their bills go straight to the trash unopened. Frequently as soon as you explain they need to fix something they just completely drop the bill for the same reasons as in this a…

Yeah my plan has always been to call them and demand proof of the debt if it ever appears on my credit, it just hasn't happened yet.

Re: Credit card debt collection

#360

Post by PeterisP »

pjc50 wrote: post #220
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, it also means things like getting denied for jobs and apartments. Car loans will be more: You might not be able to easily buy a new car. And that's not even getting into some of the other random things. You'll need to pay upfront to replace the washer that went out instead of financing - unless that financing is through one of the rent-to-own places (which still might be cheaper than going to the pay laund…

How on earth can people be denied jobs for poor credit? You're not a creditor to your employer! Isn't this just the "social credit" system that people worry about in China, except privatised?

Well, people can be denied jobs for almost every reason (except a couple explicitly listed taboo reasons i.e. protected classes), so if any employer believes that defaulting on your debt correlates with e.g. trustworthiness of a candidate, they are free to use credit rating as (dis)qualifying criteria - no matter if that belief is true or not.
Post reply on HN