It’s funny (it’s really not) that at least part of the modern stereotype about Jews being greedy is probably because Christians weren’t supposed to charge interest. The whole “if someone asks you for your jacket, give them your shirt as well” Bible quote. So, if you needed a loan, you went to a Jewish moneylender, who would loan you the money, for a price.
It’s funny (it’s really not) how far Christian morality has swung in the other direction (but the stereotype about Jews remains).
With medical debts it starts even earlier when poor and historically uninsured people get stuck in debt over simple medical services.
Single payer would eliminate all this while cutting costs dramatically
If I were an omnipotent being, asking one of my followers why they had flouted my will, and they replied, “Well, technically…” I’d immediately reincarnate them as a mosquito.
Correct. When a “delinquent” debt is created by slipshod billing practices (say $40 billed to a closed credit card account) and then there is no good faith effort to re-bill, or contact the debtor, the “debt” can be demonstrated to be invalid. It would be written off and should disappear from the books. Grotesque interest and fees on such a “debt” are also invalid, if it can be demonstrated that the dunning process was flawed, negligent, etc.
For $600 you can purchase 2 hours of a lawyer’s time in order to get this done. A good one will disabuse a collections agency of the notion that they’re entitled to an 8-9X payment on a “debt” created by clerical errors.
There are legal protocols in every state that constrain collection of fee-inflated small debts like the one discussed above. It is painful to concern trollies to find out about them, but they exist.
I remember an (atypically-religious) Libertarian/Objectivist weighing in once on the Israel issue with a vomit-inducing “Well, why didn’t your people use your God-given financial talents to just buy the land instead of conquering it?”
My response was something I can’t really post here without getting my reply flagged.
I’m glad you can - where I live to hire a law firm is 700 up front - and that’s on the cheap side.
That being said - if I pay a lawyer 600 or I pay the agency 600 - it’s still 600 I’m out - honestly I felt responsible (I tell my better half to check accounts monthly for abnormalities - she’s not very good at it) so whatever. I’ll remind you that the claim was for 800 - not 600 - wonderful stuff they just tack on - it’s much like a bounced check fee (haven’t seen one of those in around 9 years) where you get 35 bucks from the bank and 25 from the store - yup - it’s your fault for bouncing a check - but there is little you can do to the 60 bucks you are now ‘out’ in fees.
What’s really funny is that the bible does layout how to handle debt - no debt should ever last more than 7 years - and every 7 years all debt is forgiven.
Kind of like you can file bankruptcy every 7 years.
It almost makes you wonder what they based the bankruptcy law on…
Until the ‘Christian coalition’ gutted the bankruptcy law to make it harder to file, and made some debts (student loans) un-dischargeable - etc. Because apparently the ability to start fresh was some kind of gimmick - the way people follow the old testament when it pleases them (such as against LGBT issues) and ignore it the rest of the time is hilarious.
There can be fraud on the part of the companies. Years ago, my husband opened a store credit card at a chain jewelers. He bought my engagement ring with that financing. The terms were no interest for one year; 3 months before we were to have paid it off, the company suddenly stopped sending us statements.
Fortunately, we were keeping track and made the final three payments (the company claimed they didn’t have an apartment number for us, but we’d received 9 other statements with the address correct.)
Another couple of months went by, and suddenly they dinged his credit report for the “unpaid” interest charges. But we’d paid this on time, no late payments, and I’d made the final one over the phone to insure that it wasn’t late. We didn’t owe any interest charges; we’d stuck to the terms of the agreement. It still took us a year to get it off his credit report. I am quite certain that the company had a plan here: to stop sending statements in the hopes that we’d make late payments, thus leaving us on the hook for the interest. When we paid anyway, they still tried it.
I live in Reno, NV and my ‘family’ lawyer is $450/hour, so I was under-stating the case, I know. I’d need to live much deeper in ‘flyover’ to get $300/hour nowadays. Like, maybe, a small town outside Utica, NY. However, If you consider $700 per as ‘on the cheap side’ my suggestion is: don’t use your business lawyer for home stuff. Even in the Bay Area, $700 is reasonable for upper middle/professional class personal stuff.
It’s clear you are a high functioning professional whose time is worth a lot, but, dammit man, you are feeding a vile beast when you settle – after perhaps one phone haggling session of ~20’ – and pay greater than 10X the original charge. It’s a luxury to do so, not a duty. Paying the original $40 + 2-3X fee is duty. Paying for this rapine which will be thrust upon other, less able people tomorrow, is not. It’s kind of the opposite.
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