141–150 of 269 posts
Advice from someone who works on debt collection software for a living: never, ever let a check bounce. Returned checks operate in a legal loophole that circumvents most of the consumer protection afforded to regular debt. Collection agencies can begin pursuing it immediately, can begin reporting it to the credit bureaus immediately, and the interest rate they're allowed to charge on it is ridiculous.
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In the USA: Yes, the alleged debtor can insist on proof. The bad news: If collector mails the debtor, and the debtor doesn't respond for 30 days, the collector can report the debt to the credit reporting agencies. And we all know what a pain it is to get anything corrected on a credit report.
I don't understand why people freak out so much about their credit reports. I have no idea what my credit score is and don't care. I guess it's poor people who need credit to scrape by on a regular basis? If you have a lot of cash it seems like a completely empty threat. The bank is not going to care about your $400 unpaid comcast bill when writing you a mortgage. People who have declared bankruptcy twice are getting…
Information does eventually age out of your credit report.
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OK, I agree that part is a little ridiculous but only in the "why bother" sense.
It's probably the same thing like gambling to those people. Or penny stock trading. The reasoning is probably like this: at 1/1200 rate, I can cheaply buy a whole crapload of debt. And based on the time-honored principle "if you throw enough shit at a wall, some of it will stick", if just a small percentage of those debts pays out, I will make a profit even if the rest are junk.
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The hospitals aren't the problem, every hospital in the Boise, ID area is non-profit and frequently they work with those without coverage to significantly reduce or completely write off their medical expenses. It's the insurance system that is the problem, since I have insurance the hospitals won't give me a dime off my bill, and my costs are heavily inflated because those of us WITH insurance are subsidizing those w…
Insurers almost always negotiate huge discounts with hospitals. So the bill you see is not the bill they pay, and what they pay is considered confidential.
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I agree, but I think there is too much at stake for too many high net-worth individuals and corporations for the US to make a change to the single-payer system. A 10% rise in taxes? That's a heck of a lot of money. The majority of the rich won't buy into it, they'll fight it tooth and nail. In my opinion, I think it depends on how well appeals for/against a single-payer system resonate with the middle class. Do they…
>A 10% rise in taxes? That's a heck of a lot of money. The majority of the rich won't buy into it, they'll fight it tooth and nail. But now they pay insurance anyway, aren't they?. With a single-payer system, their contribution would actually probably fall.
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This is the worst possible advice a person could give. Collectors can and will go to court to get a Judgement (capital-J), which allows them to garnish wages (among other things) and in some cases is actually worse than declaring bankruptcy. "If you have a lot of cash" speaks volumes about where you're coming from, though. Congratulations on being one of the very privileged few in this country who can afford to do wh…
They pursue a judgement on sums up around thousands of dollars where the charges are clearly valid. There is no way that's going to happen on some piddly $400 amount that you have documented is substantially BS. What I'm talking about is people I've seen in recent threads freaked out about some comcast charge affecting their credit report. Don't waste a minute of your time dealing with them or the credit bureaus. Jus…
Billions of dollars are being thrown around at companies where the average level of technical sophistication is Excel spreadsheets and the prototypical competitor is a high-school graduate with an average of N weeks of experience in the industry.
Advice from someone who works on debt collection software for a living: never, ever let a check bounce. Returned checks operate in a legal loophole that circumvents most of the consumer protection afforded to regular debt. Collection agencies can begin pursuing it immediately, can begin reporting it to the credit bureaus immediately, and the interest rate they're allowed to charge on it is ridiculous.
"Most negative information disappears from credit reports after seven years and, depending on state law, debts may be unrecoverable through a lawsuit after as little as three years" So all I have to do to get out of my loans is live off the grid for 7 years? I wonder if this is the same for student loans.
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This is beyond idiotic. My credit score is HORRIBLE due to little things like this accumulating in my youth. Pay everything, always -- always pay -- always. It WILL come back to fuck you over just when you need those extra few points.
Not so idiotic. I ran up a modest amount of debt in my early twenties, never paid any of it. Fast forward ten years. Found a decent job, look to buy a car, come to find out my credit report is mostly empty. Most everything had dropped off. Capital One gave me a credit card, I've been building up credit and savings over the last year. If you have the discipline to say, "no new debt," which isn't that hard to do after…