I get calls from companies telling me that my car warranty is about to expire and that I need to sign up for coverage right away. Drives me nuts.
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This sounds like a great idea in theory, but once the paper has been sold off, there doesn’t seem to be any other way to settle the debt. I stalled too long once on a medical bill, after which time they would no longer accept my payment, said I’d have to deal with the guys they sold the debt to.
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So let me paraphrase here:
“there is an obvious first thing he should have done, and if he didn’t do it obviously he didn’t do anything at all”
Um, so you always do the right thing first? I know I sure don’t. I argue with people on TV. I don’t even me real people that are on TV, I mean the characters in fiction shows. That definitely isn’t a useful first step, but I do it anyway.
Sometimes when I disagree with someone I won’t actually find out what they mean first. Or I’ll argue the bad point they put forward rather then finding out what they are upset about.
Maybe it is just me, but my actions don’t always match up with what are objectively my best course of action. My first reaction to an emotionally charged situation almost never actually matches up with the best course of action.
…also as a practical matter a (vague?) rape threat from someone out of state, and likely out of country may not carry a lot of weight with the police. I mean sure, it may well be a good idea to report it, but I don’t think that the police department of Navoo Pennsylvania (for example) really has any useful enforcement powers over whoever is on the other end of a phone conversation that probably terminates in an Indian call center. They might not even be able to do anything if it terminates in some boiler room in New York City. Sorry, I just don’t think the world works as well as you think it does.
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One way to handle it is to make sure you get proper documentation at every stage and moment of communication. Have said agency mail you copies of statements, receipts, their policies, whatever you can think of.
Years ago i settled a $500 debt and the agency never told the original source of the debt that i had paid. Nor did they ever provide me with proof of payment. A year or two later a different agency came knocking trying to collect the same debt. After trying to track down proof of payment i gave up and paid again but i made sure to ask for all kinds of documentation. After that the debt went away.
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You didn’t read the article.
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There is actually quite a bit of interesting history there. Christianity was historically vastly more hostile to usury than the present would suggest(even the fact that we now think of usury as “excessive interest rates” rather than “at interest” is a change); but things changed.
You always had the just-plain-black-market lenders, obviously; they were gradually joined by an assortment of increasingly sophisticated legalism and loophole work(some attempts to actually be compliant, like the ones that dealt with the Aristotelian doctrine (adopted more or less entirely by Catholicism of the time) that interest was, among other things, contrary to natural law because money does not fructify by structuring the loan to involve land or other assets seen as naturally productive and having the creditor receive the fruits of those for the duration, totally not as payment for the money involved; some of varying degrees of shadiness (like the various “partnerships” involving a party putting up more of the cash and a party putting up more of the labor; predictably these ranged from fairly equitable to just calling a creditor a ‘partner’ with all the sincerity of a gig-economy 'independent contractor’s); and some outright flimflam(like ‘dry’ bills of exchange that existed just to hide interest payments in the form of transaction costs or exchange rates).
Gradually, the respectable theorists became increasingly comfortable with the logic of some of the less shabby excuses and more and more flavors of loan became licit, if the appropriate forms were observed. Notably, though, providing unsecured consumption credit to people in need remained about the most widely disliked. The theory was generally on different grounds; but many of the rules had a “this is for mercantile activities and sophisticated business only” effect.
From what I’ve read(definitely less than on Catholic or Protestant cases; and the Reformation had interesting effects on their respective development) Islam is still in the creative legalisms stage. Just “charging interest” wouldn’t do; but if you can come up with something a bit more indirect, then shop it around until you find a legal scholar willing to do a favorable write-up; that you can work with.
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The article is really frustrating - the scumbags making the phone calls and threats at the bottom level are not seeing any consequences. The guys above them are knowingly buying fake “debt” lists, and they’re not seeing any consequences. The guys at the top, creating and selling these fake debt lists are - at best - seeing some financial penalties (after reaping billions of dollars), for what is a massive fraud scheme. It’s amazing how different kinds of financial crimes get treated differently - massive, high level crimes see no criminal penalty (with rare exceptions), and lower level crimes get a pass on crimes if they’re seen as potentially being in service of the financial industry (even when they aren’t they’re given the benefit of the doubt).
What’s amazing is how data is just being (fraudulently) transposed from one data set (just the personal information about everyone floating out there) to another (list of people with debts), and there’s a whole system that simply accepts the assertion that these people owe money (with zero proof) and will allow abuses in the service of “recovering” that money.
Yeah, I keep reading about how it’s now common for people who may or may not have ever owed money to see their name and (possibly fictitious) debt sold off to multiple people simultaneously, each trying to claim the same “debt.”
That’s kind of funny that you think the cops would actually do something about a supposed (unrecorded) threat made by an unknown person from an unknown company calling from an unknown state. Collection agents make those kinds of threats precisely because they know they’re untouchable. You seem to be casting doubt on the whole article without having read the fucking article either, which is silly.
Being responsible with money doesn’t stop you from being exposed to this kind of fraud and abuse, though, as the article makes clear, if you read it. It’s just good luck that you haven’t ended up on these lists. People who do owe money, however, fall prey to these frauds precisely because of good-faith effort to pay their debts (which either don’t exist or aren’t impacted by their payments).
Yeah, or stop dozens of people from buying the list with your name, and all doing that. A total nightmare of outright mass fraud.
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What would calling the police and making a complaint have accomplished?
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Hell yeah!
I would be tempted to also say
a) xx is not known at this address or phone number.
b) yes I am xx but I have no money or assets of any kind. Please do not contact me again or I will report you for harassment.
c) I wont talk to you till you give me your supervisors personal number and then I will return his call when he gets home.
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Finished the article detailing the guy’s story of vendetta and it’s really something else. Dude out played the FBI and FTC at getting the lender to pay for years of fraud and predatory business practices.
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I get calls from “card services” and also offers to forgive some of my student loan debt (if I pay them a “partial amount”). I’ve never had a student loan.
And I’ve gotten collection calls for women who share my name, which is common. One lady kept calling me back, insisting that I must be the Many Bells she was looking for because I’d lived in a specific town. My name is common enough that even my pharmacy has to check my birthdate every time because there’s another woman who gets her pills there with my name, so there’s probably half a dozen of “me” in a big enough city.
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Oh, I’ve had those too. My car is old enough to vote. Pretty sure any warranty is long gone. And it’s a Saturn - my mechanic is starting to have trouble finding parts for it because they don’t make 'em anymore. So not sure what good a “warranty” would do me.
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Besides the fact that the complaint would largely be that. If the source of the call was across state lines the local popo have very little power to do anything about it. This is why people get away with swatting so often as the call is made with a spoofed number from another state or heck another country which makes it very hard to do anything even when they know exactly who the person is.
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Hi, I’m guessing you’re not a woman. The police don’t take threats of rape or violence made by a stranger over the phone (or online) seriously. We’re lucky if we can get them to come for threats made in person. You don’t know the guy’s real name, or where he’s calling from, or if he actually knows your address - what are the cops going to do?
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I assume you are being sarcastic. Right?
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Don’t take it from us, take it from a guy who has done some serious research on shit like this:
It’s not the fault of the victims. It’s a predatory system, a good portion of it criminal. And I can almost guarantee that if you have any debt, whatsoever, you have no idea who actually owns all of it.
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I just don’t understand how it’s legal to sell off debt like that in the first place. If I agree to financing with, say, toyota and default, that’s part of the cost of doing business for toyota. I never agreed to do business with anyone else, and selling the debt off to someone else without my consent seems very easy to abuse.
Why should anyone hold onto even slightly defaulted debt when companies that amount more-or-less to private mobs are willing to snap it up and abuse those who defaulted.
It’s just a mess. Super easy to lose track of what’s been paid and what hasn’t. Nobody’s obligated to stop harassing you since the FTC is nearly toothless anymore. Local law enforcement doesn’t take personal threats at all seriously. It’s all gross and why I will absolutely never go into debt if I can possibly help it.
I’ve seen what debt does to people and as a millenial, I’d rather be homeless than deal with the shitstorm of debt where hundreds of parties apparently have the legal right to own you piecemeal to the point where you can’t buy TP to wipe your own ass without someone claiming 30% of it.
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Yes, there are a number of very ‘interesting’ ‘Islamic finance’ products around which claim to be compatible with Islamic law while still providing financial returns for the ‘investor’/definitely-not-‘lender’.
As you would expect these tend to range from the ‘clearly acceptable legally and morally’ to the Islamic finance equivalent of investing your money in Moldavian art-house films which no one ever intends to actually make via a Monaco shell company owned by a Gibraltar registered nominee.
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Add in this bit:
By day he was still promoting ice cream brands and hiring models for liquor store tastings.
So have I got this right, his day job involved hiring models to drink in liquor stores?
Hello Hollywood!
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Probably an insurance job 
The scams never end.
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