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

Inside the Dark, Lucrative World of Consumer Debt Collection

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 269 posts

Re: Inside the Dark, Lucrative World of Consumer Debt Collection

#231

Post by thix0tr0pic »

osamet67 wrote: post #213
sanderjd wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me a lot of when the department of education sold my student loans to a couple private firms. Out of the blue, I just received a couple emails from a couple companies I've never heard of asking me to give them all my information (including my SSN) in order to create an account. I deleted them immediately, assuming there was a new phishing scheme in vogue, and didn't realize what had happened until I chec…

Something's missing here - who actually paid the loan?

No one "paid" the loan, the debt was sold to a private creditor and OP's account was then considered settled in the eyes of the DOE. They can't delete the account in order to keep an audit trail, so the amount owed is adjusted to zero.

Re: Inside the Dark, Lucrative World of Consumer Debt Collection

#232

Post by infinite8s »

judk wrote: post #85
jliptzin wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even rich people take out mortgages, for plenty of reasons. Banks will look for any reason to charge you a higher interest rate. That $400 unpaid comcast bill is a perfect excuse for them to charge you an extra $15,000 in interest or more on a loan (over the course of the loan's lifetime).

This is why we get competitive bids from multiple banks.

They all use the same 3 credit reporting agencies (in addition to the completely non-transparent aggregate FICO score)

Re: Inside the Dark, Lucrative World of Consumer Debt Collection

#233

Post by cookiecaper »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #138
snuxoll wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Unless the insurance falls through entirely or partially, and then the patient is stuck with some or all of the massively unreasonable bill.

Re: Inside the Dark, Lucrative World of Consumer Debt Collection

#234

Post by mikeash »

bequanna wrote: post #167
mikeash wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US government already pays more per capita for health care than Canada, despite not covering anywhere close to everybody. If one could wave a magic wand and transmute the US to the Canadian system, US government health care expenditures would actually fall, and taxed could be lowered .

I certainly don't disagree with you. The fact of the matter is: If a goal involves raising taxes on the rich (or corporations) in the US, it will be pretty difficult to achieve.

I don't disagree with that either, I'm just pointing out that universal coverage, done well and efficiently (a massive qualifier, I know) wouldn't require any tax increases at all.

Re: Inside the Dark, Lucrative World of Consumer Debt Collection

#235

Post by jorgis »

adrianwaj wrote: post #223
kazinator wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are totally right! +1. The article had me at "stolen". If you owe a bit of money, some of the dipshits that call you may actually have misappropriated the collection account and are not connected to the original debtor in any way, who did not receive and will not receive a red cent. This passing of the buck helps to explain why numerous agencies may be involved: people get calls from various toms, dicks and harry…

> are not connected to the original debtor in any way, who did not receive and will not receive a red cent that explains why many years ago some collector hung up on me when I kept on explaining to them that I had lost the bills and if they could resend... they couldn't do that.

Yeah, if I ever get a call from a collector I'm just going to ask them if they have my signature on a contract. If they don't they don't actually own anything and I'm free to ignore them.

Re: Inside the Dark, Lucrative World of Consumer Debt Collection

#236

Post by hnal943 »

einrealist wrote: post #207
blhack wrote: post #34

This is one of the most unbelievable articles I've ever read. If you didn't read it all the way through, do so over lunch or something; it's amazing. The idea of "millions of dollars" worth of debt being traded for around on thumb drives, and that all those thumb drives really contain are excel spreadsheets is mind boggling . Those people in those spreadsheets are real people , and they're being completely duhumanize…

This should be regulated. If debt can be bought for 1/12 of the actual debt, that debt should be cut to that 1/12 as well!

the discount reflects the likelihood of collecting any money, which is extremely low.

Re: Inside the Dark, Lucrative World of Consumer Debt Collection

#237

Post by hnal943 »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #74
Terr_ wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems simple and fair at first, but I think it actually creates more problems than it solves. First, you get a horrible incentive to not repay debts: 1. A relatively innocent and good-natured Bank lends a jerk $1.00 2. The jerk refuses to pay it back, knowing the bank can't transfer it to someone who isn't a pushover without giving him a steeply-discounted offer first 3. In response all loan requirements and int…

But you're getting shady/manipulative actions already. The only difference is that this approach would favour debtors, not lenders. It's not as if banks don't expect exactly the benefits you're not allowing debtors when their own debts blow up. If banks get bail-outs - and do they ever - why shouldn't ordinary people?

It favors deadbeats against responsible lenders because the costs of borrowing would necessarily go up to protect the bank against additional losses.

Re: Inside the Dark, Lucrative World of Consumer Debt Collection

#238

Post by thisjepisje »

blhack wrote: post #34

This is one of the most unbelievable articles I've ever read. If you didn't read it all the way through, do so over lunch or something; it's amazing. The idea of "millions of dollars" worth of debt being traded for around on thumb drives, and that all those thumb drives really contain are excel spreadsheets is mind boggling . Those people in those spreadsheets are real people , and they're being completely duhumanize…

I don't understand what you find so shocking about financial data from lots of people in excel sheets.

Re: Inside the Dark, Lucrative World of Consumer Debt Collection

#239

Post by prostoalex »

cookiecaper wrote: post #233
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Unless the insurance falls through entirely or partially, and then the patient is stuck with some or all of the massively unreasonable bill.

That used to be the case, but ACA regulates maximum out-of-pocket costs now.

Re: Inside the Dark, Lucrative World of Consumer Debt Collection

#240

Post by justifier »

eli wrote: post #51
blhack wrote: post #34

This is one of the most unbelievable articles I've ever read. If you didn't read it all the way through, do so over lunch or something; it's amazing. The idea of "millions of dollars" worth of debt being traded for around on thumb drives, and that all those thumb drives really contain are excel spreadsheets is mind boggling . Those people in those spreadsheets are real people , and they're being completely duhumanize…

Sure, but on the other hand, let's say you run a small business. At some point you have customers who don't pay. What do you do? Write it off as a total loss? 1/12 is better than nothing.

on interest accruing that penalises payments that fail to meet a time deadline or a premium amount a company can very quickly make the money back that they lent out while still having the individual held under crippling debt,

if i use a credit card foolishly and put myself into 2500$ debt, and over time receive a number of fees due to my late payments, my 2500$ debt can rise to 5000$ effortlessly,

at this point if i pay the bank 4000$, they made 1500$ off me already, then they decide to sell the remaining 1000$ for 1/12 its worth the original lender has been given 4083$ for an original 2500$ loan, and now the credit adjuster or whoever bought the debt could make 917$ by collecting the 1000$

i'd like to see statistics on how much an original debt was, how much has been paid into it, and how much it sold for

then we can discuss potential for 'total loss'

i wonder if you went to the lender and offered to pay your debt back at 1/12 its cost if they would sell the rights to your own debt to you?

Post reply on HN