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Paying consumer debts is basically optional in the United States

pluralistic.net

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Re: Paying consumer debts is basically optional in the United States

#51

Post by blcknight »

ta20230813 wrote: post #20
blcknight wrote: post #3

Sort of. I got into a rough spot after I got out of the military and I ended up defaulting on all my credit card debt. I got kicked out for being gay with no notice and had no savings. What little I had went to moving and finding a new job. Only AmEx sued me (and we settled). I later sued most of the collection companies with the help of a lawyer and netted about $40K in settlements. Some had called my parents and to…

> I got kicked out for being gay with no notice and had no savings. Same, in December 2002. Feels a little strange how it works now, compared to be drug out of the barracks by MPs like a criminal. The Army never apologizes.

Yea it’s still not fully accepting but nobody’s kicked out anymore. I know I’ll never get an apology. The US doesn’t apologize.

I do see the occasional person bringing their SO to the Navy and Marine balls.

Re: Paying consumer debts is basically optional in the United States

#52

Post by ericjmorey »

ransom1538 wrote: post #36

Reminder. There are states that protect your home from judgements: "exempts homestead property from levy and execution by judgment creditors". Medical bankruptcy should be expected and planned for - as you age it will be difficult to get health insurance. Move to states that will protect your home.

> as you age it will be difficult to get health insurance.

Are you unaware of Medicare and Medicaid?

Re: Paying consumer debts is basically optional in the United States

#53

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #24
tiahura wrote: post #15

As a lawyer who has fought a few collection cases, I would disagree with the notion that the collectors typically can’t document the debt. They can. Moreover the fdcpa doesn’t require the collector to prove the debt to you with absolute metaphysical certitude. They just have to verify it.

Hmmm... One would expect that the cases that actually get to the point of lawyers and courts are atypical. It seems likely that the ones who can't document the debt would probably drop the matter when first challenged, long before that stage. Is that not the case?

I know someone who walked away from £15k of credit card debt because the collection company sued with forged paperwork.

He happened to have all the original paperwork on file and it proved they hadn't followed the required legal procedures.

Trying to forge an essential document wasn't going to help their case.

I've heard from a number of people who work for banks, lenders, and insurers that record keeping is a complete mess, and a certain amount of unlawful creative improvisation isn't unusual.

So... they may claim to have proof, but there's a reasonable chance that if it's examined closely and/or all original correspondence is kept, they don't.

This seems to be worse in the US where debts are traded and retraded and the original paperwork may be long gone.

Re: Paying consumer debts is basically optional in the United States

#54

Post by badpun »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #28
Bostonian wrote: post #2

You can believe that collection agencies behave illegally and also think that is unethical not to pay your debts to the best of your ability. Even if paying consumer debts is optional, not being able to get credit in the future, especially a home mortgage, is an incentive to pay. Some employers check the credit scores of applicants, and such scores probably are a decent indicator of whether someone has their life in…

Once the debt has been sold off, it's very likely that your credit score has already been impacted. On the ethics front: let's say I owe money to a credit card company. They sell it off to EZ-Sleez, the debt collection company. What do I owe to them? I certainly didn't borrow money from them. We have no particular relationship. They have one with the credit card company, but that's none of my business, from an ethics…

> The idea of selling debt itself feels very unethical to me

You must be appaled by the existence of the global bonds market then.

Re: Paying consumer debts is basically optional in the United States

#55

Post by jwie »

When creditors sell debt to collections they should be required to allow the debtor to buy their debt back at that price.

Of course they'll never actually do that. Usurers are unreceptive to any notion that you won't pay every last extortionate penny. They'd rather sell it to collections for 5 cents on the dollar than let you settle for 50 in a straightforward conversation.

Re: Paying consumer debts is basically optional in the United States

#56

Post by oceanghost »

blcknight wrote: post #8
l33t7332273 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another called me work repeatedly and told my boss Even from a purely self serving perspective, why would they do this? If your boss gets mad that you have bad debt and fires you, then it’s now even less likely that you will be paying off the debt, no?

My experience with debt collectors is they don’t act rationally and once they’re able to find someone they harass you using any means necessary. The fear of being fired is a good motivator to get people to pay.

Precisely.

I got a new land-line-number in the early 2000s. One day, I got a collection call for someone with a Mexican surname. I explained I had just gotten the number and I didn't know who that person was. So naturally, they called twice a day for months. I disconnected the line because I was basically paying $20/m for them to harass me. And here's the part I can't explain-- even after being disconnected, the phone would ring but only for the debt collector.

EDIT:

Another story. Solar Panels in the late early 2010s. The ex-wife's father died years ago, once or twice a week, someone would call her cell phone, ask for her dead father and then try to sell her solar panels. They would not stop. It escalated to calls 6 days a week.

I eventually got fed up and told them I'd be happy to come down there with a pistol if they kept calling. I know, not the best choice, but keep in mind this is after 6 months of daily harassment.

The guy on the other end of the phone flipped out, told me “I was committing a federal crime, and he was going to report me to the police and to expect them shortly.” Then, as an intimidation tactic, he read my full name and address-- except it was my dead FILs information.

I told him to go ahead and put his name on a police report so I knew his name.

The calls stopped for one month, and then started again.

Re: Paying consumer debts is basically optional in the United States

#57

Post by lukas099 »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #28
Bostonian wrote: post #2

You can believe that collection agencies behave illegally and also think that is unethical not to pay your debts to the best of your ability. Even if paying consumer debts is optional, not being able to get credit in the future, especially a home mortgage, is an incentive to pay. Some employers check the credit scores of applicants, and such scores probably are a decent indicator of whether someone has their life in…

Once the debt has been sold off, it's very likely that your credit score has already been impacted. On the ethics front: let's say I owe money to a credit card company. They sell it off to EZ-Sleez, the debt collection company. What do I owe to them? I certainly didn't borrow money from them. We have no particular relationship. They have one with the credit card company, but that's none of my business, from an ethics…

I'm guessing you agreed that the CC company could sell your debt when you signed up for the card.

Re: Paying consumer debts is basically optional in the United States

#58

Post by rsynnott »

viknesh wrote: post #42

> the vast majority of consumers, including those with the socioeconomic wherewithal to walk away from their debts, feel themselves morally bound and pay as agreed The extent to which the headline is true is probably only because of the above quote. If a significant number of people who actually had the means to pay simply chose not to, of course debtors would start taking collection more seriously. Perhaps this mean…

People with 20k of delinquent debt and the means to pay it are a bit of an edge case, though; mostly people that collections agencies go after will not have the means to reasonably pay their debt, at least not all of it. This encourages agencies to be more aggressive; they want _their_ debt to be first in line for anything that does get paid.

Re: Paying consumer debts is basically optional in the United States

#59

Post by rsynnott »

DangitBobby wrote: post #50
rsynnott wrote: post #43

From the linked piece: > Well, not all of it. I didn’t inherit the assets. She didn’t leave a will, which meant the state of Tennessee inherited her house. What I inherited was her debt. Wait, is this right?! In Ireland, and I thought most common-law places, if someone dies intestate, an administrator is appointed, in practice generally the next of kin. Any assets go in the estate, the administrator pays any debts ou…

Yeah, that's how it works here in Tennessee too. Not sure what happened. Edit: looks like the literature referenced was from almost 200 years ago.

Only thing I can think of is that the author was a guarantor on the mother’s debt. Which I suppose is possible. Even still though I don’t understand why the house would go to the state.

The book she mentions is pretty old, but the situation with her mother she mentions is current.

Re: Paying consumer debts is basically optional in the United States

#60

Post by mistrial9 »

h2odragon wrote: post #32

Wife and I tried to start a business a couple years ago; ran onto circumstances that made it difficult, went bankrupt. We talked to all our credit card issuers about our troubles beforehand, trying to get some better option than "just stop paying"; they were not interested. Discover actually laughed at my wife when she asked about it: "you're not even delinquent yet!" We were going to be the next day, and would've li…

you dealt with your creditors in a way that a responsible business owner (or farmer) would do it -- like adults dealing with bad news in a long-term relationship. A difference though, is that in consumer credit cards, the scale of the offering made it a whole-new situation. The people you talked to are low-training cogs, and there is almost zero sense of relationship at the scale of consumer credit like that. The people at the top of the consumer credit business were making more money than almost anything in the entire economy, and definitely had no time or consideration for a single small business.

The plus side is that you and your wife were able to access credit very easily compared to the past, the downside is that when you tried to treat it like a long-term relationship, it was shocking how not like that it was. don't change!

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