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Credit card debt collection

bitsaboutmoney.com

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Re: Credit card debt collection

#471

Post by Tijdreiziger »

nbadg wrote: post #268
Aardwolf wrote: post #218

> 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…

In my experience (~31yrs US, ~2yrs Germany): USA: debit cards and credit cards are both offered through banks. They operate on the same payment infrastructure (Visa, Mastercard, etc). They are all equally accepted. The only difference between them from a consumer standpoint is that a debit card immediately withdraws the money from your account and typically requires a PIN for purchases, whereas a credit card operates…

The Netherlands: the terms "debit card" (typically “pinpas”) and "credit card" ("creditcard") are used exclusively to describe the payment infrastructure, and only the payment infrastructure. In everyday language, ‘pinpas’ always refers to Maestro/VPay, which are networks run by resp. MasterCard/Visa but are nonetheless incompatible*, and are accepted almost everywhere, while ‘creditcard’ always refers to MasterCard/Visa, which are almost never accepted, except at touristic attractions.

However, as the Maestro and VPay networks are being shut down by MasterCard and Visa, things are in the process of changing. Most payment terminals now accept MasterCard/Visa as well as Maestro/VPay, though due to EU/EEA legislation, some may only accept debit cards as well as credit cards issued outside the EU/EEA (but not credit cards issued inside the EU/EEA).

At the moment, most banks are still issuing Maestro/VPay-based debit cards, likely because a small amount of payment terminals still doesn’t accept MasterCard/Visa. However, some smaller banks have already started to issue MasterCard/Visa-based debit cards.

* Historically, ‘pinpas’ referred to cards on the domestic PIN network, which were usually co-branded as Maestro for international use. With the introduction of EMV, the PIN network was retired, but debit cards are referred to as pinpassen to this day.

Re: Credit card debt collection

#472

Post by Marsymars »

wizerdrobe wrote: post #257
cavegirl wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might as well not pay it, if it follows you anyway

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…

I have a prepaid online fax account that I use semi-regularly, almost exclusively for dealing with financial matters. Quite useful.

Re: Credit card debt collection

#473

Post by kelnos »

no-dr-onboard wrote: post #403
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…

Bah. If you have no intention on purchasing a home then you're free to not care. - Buy a used car in cash and wait a couple years for the bankruptcy mark to fall off. - Your credit has to be absolutely thrashed to not get an apartment, even then there are plenty of private landlords that won't do a credit check. Its almost as though the presupposition is that you need financing for anything in life. You can save and…

I always find it weird when someone puts forth the attitude of, essentially, "you don't really need these things that other people have, so just deny yourself the things you want and it's all good!"

I will certainly agree that "keeping up with the Joneses" is a very real phenomenon, and we are marketed to death to get us to want things we don't need, that actually won't make ourselves happier or our lives better.

But there's a lot of wiggle room there. Debt is a useful tool, and it can measurably make our lives better if used wisely and responsibly. Should a few mistakes push you into a different class of people who don't have access to that? I would say no, that's unjust.

And that's without getting into all the ways that a credit report often doesn't accurately reflect your ability to manage debt, either just because of its imprecision, or because of reporting errors and unaccountable businesses that don't care who gets screwed over.

Re: Credit card debt collection

#474

Post by lr4444lr »

dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #234
b112 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poor credit can cost you dearly. Higher rates on everything, and a .5% difference in a mortgate rate is massive. It's a way to burn your credit for years, at great personal cost, so not likely that people will take the out without desperation.

Back in the early '10s I was reading a report from a guy who had stellar credit and the card limits to go with them. He ran up about $100,000 of debt on his cards on purpose and stopped making payments. He then approached his bank to settle the debt and negotiated a 60% discount. The account was marked "paid by customer" so it never appeared on his on his credit report as a default. He did get dinged for missing paym…

If he had just paid the minimum $25 or whatever, he could've avoided even missed payments.

Re: Credit card debt collection

#475

Post by Marsymars »

LorenPechtel wrote: post #431
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?

The reality is that credit rating has a strong correlation with responsibility. Thus, for example, in places where it's legal to do so insurance rates will be different. This does end up sweeping up a few who were hit by unavoidable circumstances but most people who get in credit trouble were skating too close to the edge.

Note that exceptions to the correlation has both false positives and false negatives.

e.g. On opposite side of people with bad credit who got hit by unavoidable circumstances, there are people like my partner who have limited credit score upside because they don’t use much credit. My partner has a mortgage with me, but other than that, she doesn’t have any debt and doesn’t use credit cards (other than the prepaid variety which pull directly from bank accounts and don’t contribute to credit scores.)

Re: Credit card debt collection

#476

Post by Marsymars »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #402
polski-g wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The presence of debt makes you more susceptible to bribes and blackmail.

Most homeowners have debt. So do lots of folks that own cars. And credit cards. And poor people unfortunate enough to wind up in the hospital with sub-par health insurance. And 18 year old college students with bad judgement about credit cards. Are all of these folks more susceptible to bribes and blackmail? This is a sizeable portion of the population. Does bad credit of someone that just declared bankruptcy make so…

> Are all of these folks more susceptible to bribes and blackmail?

Yes? I expect I’m more susceptible to bribes and blackmail than I would be if I were independently wealthy and mortgage-free.

Not that I want to be discriminated against on those grounds.

Re: Credit card debt collection

#477

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

vikingerik wrote: post #365
dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in the early '10s I was reading a report from a guy who had stellar credit and the card limits to go with them. He ran up about $100,000 of debt on his cards on purpose and stopped making payments. He then approached his bank to settle the debt and negotiated a 60% discount. The account was marked "paid by customer" so it never appeared on his on his credit report as a default. He did get dinged for missing paym…

I have a family member who did something similar - perfect credit and defaulted on purpose. On a rental property, he was underwater on the mortgage at the time of the 2008 crash, so he simply stopped paying and let the bank foreclose and came out ahead that way. Trashed his credit rating but he never had any need for it, he had enough to buy his own house and car outright.

> On a rental property, he was underwater on the mortgage at the time of the 2008 crash

What I don't understand is why people worried so much about being underwater. As long as you kept making payments, couldn't you ride it out and still own the house as the market recovers?

> Trashed his credit rating but he never had any need for it, he had enough to buy his own house and car outright.

This feels like it should be considered some kind of fraud.

Re: Credit card debt collection

#478

Post by quickthrower2 »

LorenPechtel wrote: post #446
quickthrower2 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Is there a chance for a HN starter upper to "fix" some of this (or at least a service to tell you what to do), or is it just too spaghetti like? Not from the US so haven't experienced it.

Re: Credit card debt collection

#479

Post by ars »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #478
LorenPechtel wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Is there a chance for a HN starter upper to "fix" some of this (or at least a service to tell you what to do), or is it just too spaghetti like? Not from the US so haven't experienced it.

The same thing that's keeping the biller from doing it correctly will also keep the startup from fixing it.

Unless you intend it to be a manual process, which isn't practical since you'll need info from everyone that's going to be hard to collect, i.e. the same problem the biller has.

The way it used to work was the biller charged insurance, and insurance paid, and that was the end of it. No one ever double checked anything.

Obama (with Obamacare) changed that - now everyone has a high deductible, insurance pays part, but you pay part. And suddenly people are motivated to check the bills.

Realistically the biller just drops bills where the person has to pay, and they live off of what insurance pays automatically.

The "on paper" of what American health care is, vs the reality are very different. The reality is weirder, but better (by better I mean less expensive than it looks on paper).

Re: Credit card debt collection

#480

Post by tourmalinetaco »

eru wrote: post #148
tourmalinetaco wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Federal Reserve already overprints, that’s one reasonwhy the USD and almost every other major currency is currently struggling. Printing more money during high inflation only worsens the problems.

Maybe. But in that case, adding more consumer spending via consumer credit would be a negative, not a positive? (Only money that's actually being actively spent makes a difference. If the Fed prints oodles of money but buries it in their backyard, it would have no impact on inflation.)

Absolutely. I am not advocating for consumer credit, in fact I find the current system immoral. I am saying that injecting Monopoly money into the economy is part of what’s gotten us into this mess.
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