Insight into the lucrative, dangerous, low life of junk debt buyers

[SRQ]

This is a long read but well worth it. It illuminates the disgusting tactics JDB's stoop to to earn their significant profits. It also points to serious deficits in consumer's privacy and integrity of credit data - data which is so often passed around from thug to thug as they leach off the least informed consumer. Very sad.

 

Should be required reading for anyone involved in credit repair.

 

The article was in the NYT Magazine. It's entitled, Paper Boys: Inside the Dark, Labrinthine, and Extremely Lucrative World of Consumer Debt Collection. The author is Jake Halpern.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/08/15/magazine/bad-paper-debt-collector.html?_r=0

 

Apologies in advance if this has already been posted. I did a search and could not find it!

[TrishaB]

Wow! That is crazy!! Glad I've learned here to dispute EVERYTHING that comes in from a CA. But, I've paid off a LOT of debt that was assigned to a CA and now I wonder will it come back to haunt me again.

[BeachDweller]

The website InsideArm used to have a forum one could access and read. It was comprised exclusively of employees of collection agencies. Some of them advocated trying to win a person's pet in court and then threatening euthanasia to extort money from "clients." Lovely people.

[cashnocredit]

The website InsideArm used to have a forum one could access and read. It was comprised exclusively of employees of collection agencies. Some of them advocated trying to win a person's pet in court and then threatening euthanasia to extort money from "clients." Lovely people.

 

Yeah, they shut that down. Probably realized it didn't exactly put collectors in the best light. The articles still allow people to post comments under each article.

 

There is a bit of "poor us" attitude at InsideArm. It's funny how victimizers so often see themselves as victims. At some level there are people at InsideArm that realize the industry has way too many fraudsters in it.

[ubercat]

 

The website InsideArm used to have a forum one could access and read. It was comprised exclusively of employees of collection agencies. Some of them advocated trying to win a person's pet in court and then threatening euthanasia to extort money from "clients." Lovely people.

 

Yeah, they shut that down. Probably realized it didn't exactly put collectors in the best light.

 

They realized that people defend their animals like children, and some of them (myself included) will take a charge.

 

Also, can you imagine local police, who are charged with protecting and serving, collecting the pets of local homeowners and business people?

 

It's just tough talk. Or some kind of stupid sick joke. Maybe they believe that only 'deadbeats' love their pets. Who knows. Sociopaths, pretty much all of them, I'm starting to believe.

[BlackKnight1983]

The website InsideArm used to have a forum one could access and read. It was comprised exclusively of employees of collection agencies. Some of them advocated trying to win a person's pet in court and then threatening euthanasia to extort money from "clients." Lovely people.

 

You know, I left this out of one of my other posts. I was being sued by two JDB's, and one day my wife was crying because someone told her that they could take away our cats and have them put to sleep if I didn't pay. I don't know who told her (she said it was a phone call, someone just said pay your debts or this will happen) and at the time I had a lot of creditors. She's still worried about the lawsuits (now down to one), but I told her not to worry. I hired a lawyer, and have the money to pay if I lose. Nobody's touching the cats.

 

A lot of people think that CA's can do all kinds of things that they can't do. They can't touch your pets (even though they are legally considered property). They can't take items that have no resale value (pictures of your family, a lock of your baby's hair, etc), just to cause you pain. In fact, they can't touch most personal property at all.