Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/12/07/when-a-debt-collector-threaten.html
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Wow, this is some creepy stuff but you know it’s not uncommon when you think about the amount of data that’s sold by everyone. But what makes this creepier is how the payday loan stuff kinda looks like it’s the origin for these fake debt scams.
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Moral: Never ever give money to any collection agency. Whoever they may be representing, you did not sign up to do business with them. “Hello?” "Hello - this is ABC collections - " “I’m sorry, what state are you based in, so I know which attorney general to complain to if you ever call me again?”
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I’m imagining this as Taken, mixed with some Agatha Christie type sleuthing, but in a mundane setting. Would work as a comedy (i’m thinking Snatch, perhaps Hot Fuzz if you want to go over the top) or as something a bit more grounded.
Anyway i’m about to read the article, sounds fascinating.
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I have this one bogus creditor coming after me on something; it’s for like $50 or $75, I could pay it off and not blink, but every time they call me they tell me “this line is being recorded for quality assurance” and say, “I don’t talk on recorded lines, call me back on a non-recorded line” (they offer to take you off recording on the same call, I never accept that) and then they don’t bother to call me back for several months. This has been going on for most of a year.
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Unless the first thing he did was call the police and swear out a complaint or have his wife do it: Threatening rape is a criminal offense in every jurisdiction I know of, then the rest is almost nonsense and being written by someone whose last name means “Fake” doesn’t help a thing.
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Just gonna throw this out there - if you are aware of your finances, you’ll know who you owe.
If you keep pawning that ring just to have $20 spending money for the weekend, then pay $30 on Monday to get it back… well… easy to see how one could fall for this scam.
full disclosure: have lived lean all my life but good money management got me all the trappings of modern life AND I’m debt-free, this payday-loan thing isn’t something I’m familiar with.
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A local PayDay joint just got torched here in San Diego, now I know why…
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The collections industry is exclusively made up of bottom-feeding scumbags. I look forward to reading about how this fellow got his revenge on one.
Allow me to interrupt your victim-blaming and self-back-patting session to note that these slimeballs’ business model relies on predation against society’s most vulnerable members (including those who “live lean” in a way that would make you look like a sybarite).
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Congratulations.
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Yep, although knowing who you owe won’t stop someone from claiming you owe them. It just lets you know the call is bogus. Knowing the call is bogus won’t stop them from calling you again and again, or calling your family or employer. Although in various jurisdictions those things are illegal, then again so is pursuing the bogus claim in the first place.
Just like the people that call me from “Card Services” offering to lower my credit card interest rates are bogus (they want me to tell them which cards I have, so no they aren’t lowering my rates, at best they are offering me a new source of debt to move existing ones onto, but I actually suspect they just want my card numbers so they can buy new shoes or something). I can know they are bogus calls, but knowing that won’t keep them from calling.
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These scammers also prey on not just people that might already have existing debts but older people who might be easily scared or confused, or people who might not know English well and will be easily bullied into paying a fee that they don’t fully understand, etc, etc.
You already know what your finances are? Wonderful, this scam is not aimed at you. (not you as in Gracchus, the other dude. The one i’m refusing to acknowledge)
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As fucked up as that is for being a thing?
But to be honest? I don’t know what to say beyond predatory debt is Evil.
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Good on you for saving me the trouble, and the risk of a time-out.
I get predatory offers to go even deeper into debt fairly regularly, (as one of the many disadvantages of being the working poor); I always tear them up, but lately I’ve been tempted to doxx the companies that send out that shit as a form of minor retribution.
Then I usually end up deciding it isn’t worth my time or energy…
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I will almost guarantee you that these creeps threaten to call immigration on any victim with a Spanish accent.
The American economy is an ever-growing minefield of scams aimed at those who started out poor and who were never lucky enough to have received a proper education in personal finance from their parents (since goodness knows it’s not a priority in public K-12 schools).
And now what few protections were put in place for consumers are being methodically stripped away by the current regime.
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When i took our a care credit for vet bills i saw a huge uptick in credit card offers and offers for payday loans, transferring loan debts, etc. Likewise when i bought my car earlier in the year i saw a big increase in the volume of this shit getting mailed to me. I just throw all that junk in the trash but it’s seriously obnoxious, and if i were a more petty person i would go out of my way to stop the junk mail but i just don’t have the energy. My comfort at least is that these companies are wasting money trying to reach me… it’s not all that much money but still.
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All I know is these fuckers better hope & pray the groceries stores that exist stay stocked indefinitely; because once widespread food shortage* becomes the norm, all fucking bets are off.
*Meaning not that food will be overpriced (which it already is), but that there will not be enough of it produced to stock the shelves.
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I’ll go further and say all loans with interest are evil.
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It’s the reason why it’s a thing that Muslims do not typically engage in taking out loans. I did not know about this practice until recently and found it to be pretty enlightening and interesting.
And as a follow up, i just now looked it up a bit further and it’s also forbidden under Christian and Judaic religions as well. Learn something new every day i guess, though for these religions its against high interest rates specifically. When Islamic faith is against all interest.
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“But still the usurer takes another way:
He scorns nature and her follower, art,
Because he puts his hope in something else.”
-Dante Alighieri, Inferno, Canto XI
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