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Credit card debt collection

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Re: Credit card debt collection

#441

Post by notsurenymore »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #423
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no evidence either way, but it is not absurd in my opinion to suggest that people who make poor life decisions in one area of their lives might also make poor life decisions elsewhere.

A bad credit score doesn't really mean you've made bad choices. It just means you had some bad luck. The reasons for your bad luck can range from medical bills, job loss, missing work when poor (it snowballs) and other such things. It might mean you made a bad decision when you were 18, but it is still hanging around on your credit. You might have been in a financially abusive relationship. Shit happens, and it is na…

Regardless, I don’t see how making perfectly legal bad choices means you’re more likely to commit crime.

Perhaps we should also deny jobs to people who get divorced or who eat an unhealthy diet, as those can be an indicator of “poor choices”.

Re: Credit card debt collection

#442

Post by LorenPechtel »

ATMLOTTOBEER wrote: post #426
lodovic wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I use a credit card, I pay up to 20% on the outstanding amount. If I use my debit card, I get interest on the money that I don't spend. I also cannot spend more than what is in my account. If there is a charge I disagree with, I can easily reverse it without any cost. And I have never met anyone who had a fraudulent charge (without being dumb). To me, I cannot understand why anyone would use a credit card unless d…

Paying your credit card off fully every month ensures you don’t pay any interest (use it like a debit card). Wrt the earning interest point, consider that with a credit card you still get interest on the money you don’t spend, and you can also collect interest on the money you do spend (eg I buy something for $100 on the 15th, I can collect interest on the $100 until I have to actually pay the bill on the 1st of next…

Yup. For a responsible user there simply is no downside to using a credit card in most situations.

Re: Credit card debt collection

#443

Post by LorenPechtel »

nradov wrote: post #153
nico wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It depends on the situation. They might be polite but unwilling to budge on the issue.

My mother had a problem back before "identity theft" became a common term. Apparently someone used her SS# with their employer. The IRS was coming after her about the unreported income. Hey, that's not mine! Contact your employer and get it fixed. I've never heard of them let alone worked for them and I can't find them, can you give me their address? (This was pre-internet.) No, we aren't allowed to, you need to get it fixed.

I went off to college at that point and never learned how it ended up.

Re: Credit card debt collection

#444

Post by LorenPechtel »

pjc50 wrote: post #225
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…

Similarly with the British system, especially the disability system. You have to fill in a 160-page form and turn up to an appointment. They interpret everything you have written on the form as evidence of ability, including turning up to the appointment itself. Ability to fill in a form and turn up to an appointment is used as evidence that you should be capable of having a job, and are therefore ineligible for help…

Sounds about like my understanding of how disability works in the US, also. If you have one clear-cut showstopper it's not a problem but anything else expect to be denied and you probably have to hire a lawyer.

Re: Credit card debt collection

#445

Post by unbalancedevh »

flangola7 wrote: post #436
bequanna wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both political parties have endeavored to pack the courts with sympathetic judges. The conservatives got the Supreme Court majority by pure luck. The Democrats would have done the exact same if given the opportunity and then you’d have the Right crying about how the court is “invalid”. To change this, we should require some kind of supermajority to confirm judicial appointments at all levels.

[flagged]

That wasn't "bothsidesing" the issue. Whatever your current political opinion, the potential is still there for abuse by either party, and there's room for improvement in the process. The point still stands.

Re: Credit card debt collection

#446

Post by LorenPechtel »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #44
ars wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If they fix the bill, maybe it causes trouble for them with insurance companies? Whereas sliding some money back is a quiet way to deal with it.

Yeah, to fix it would mean giving the insurance back the money on whatever was wrong.

The whole system is a mess. I had a bill rejected by the insurance as a duplicate. No, but I could easily see why they thought it was--and they told me how it should be billed so it wouldn't be rejected. Call the lab, tell them what they did wrong in the billing. They resubmit unchanged. The insurance won't accept my statement that it's legit. Call the lab, simply offer to pay it at the negotiated rate (which is all I was after, the deductible wasn't met.) Round and round--finally the insurance rejects it as billed too late and the whole thing goes away.

Re: Credit card debt collection

#447

Post by LorenPechtel »

argonaut wrote: post #133
adev_ wrote: post #91

It might be a very European view to the problem but: Why does the American government does even tolerate this credit card garbage business in the first place ? We are in the 21th century. Most payment can be validated electronically and processed under 200ms. I can pay something with my phone and get money taken directly from my bank account within seconds. There is absolutely no need of Credit Cards where Debit Card…

Credit card debt driving families to suicide is super exaggerated. America makes it relatively easy to get rid of credit card debt through bankruptcy. And even after bankruptcy it's possible to get credit cards again after a few years. And after seven years it's completely off your credit report.

As is the notion that it's mostly medical. That was a very unscrupulous "scientist"--what the study actually found was that the majority of bankruptcies included at least one recent medical bill. Of course that nuance didn't get into the popular press very well.

A while back I saw an analysis that showed 5% of bankruptcies were actually medical--and of those half were retirees who were overspending and the medical debt was simply the straw that broke the camel's back.

Re: Credit card debt collection

#448

Post by __derek__ »

bequanna wrote: post #420
303uru wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile, a "website designer" who's never deployed a website, was never hired to create one and who suffered zero injury gets a ruling. This SCOTUS is invalid.

Both political parties have endeavored to pack the courts with sympathetic judges. The conservatives got the Supreme Court majority by pure luck. The Democrats would have done the exact same if given the opportunity and then you’d have the Right crying about how the court is “invalid”. To change this, we should require some kind of supermajority to confirm judicial appointments at all levels.

> To change this, we should require some kind of supermajority to confirm judicial appointments at all levels.

That was the de facto situation until 2013 (until 2017 for the Supreme Court).[1] The Republican SCOTUS majority became entrenched when Mitch McConnell refused to allow the Senate to consider Merrick Garland in early 2016, though. That wasn't luck.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_option#2013:_Cloture_o...

Re: Credit card debt collection

#449

Post by cbozeman »

flangola7 wrote: post #436
bequanna wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both political parties have endeavored to pack the courts with sympathetic judges. The conservatives got the Supreme Court majority by pure luck. The Democrats would have done the exact same if given the opportunity and then you’d have the Right crying about how the court is “invalid”. To change this, we should require some kind of supermajority to confirm judicial appointments at all levels.

[flagged]

Expand.

Re: Credit card debt collection

#450

Post by kridsdale3 »

mrguyorama wrote: post #385
pjc50 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

>Isn't this just the "social credit" system that people worry about in China, except privatised Indeed it is, but Americans have a weird tendency to love horrible things done to them by private companies.

Because for the most part, private companies who you have alienated yourself from have competitors, and don't enforce their displeasure with you at the end of a bayonet while holding shackles. State Level credit system is an actual dystopia.
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