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John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'
- zimpenfish 10y agoThe baffling thing to me is that this is already discharged debt - "out of statute medical debt from Texas", "medical debt they no longer had to pay" - and how on earth is it legal to try and collect that?
- dvcc 10y agoIt's still debt, it's not as if the money is not owed it's just debt that has no legal repercussions for not paying. From my understanding at least. So really he saved them from harassing phone calls, not really the money itself.
- desigooner 10y agoIf the debt collectors somehow manage to trick the debtors into acknowledging the debt, the debt clock is reset & it goes back on to your credit report.
- nickysielicki 10y agoWhat constitutes acknowledgement?
- GreaterFool 10y agoI think the options are two: bully and harass the debtors until they pay or go to courts and try to get the default judgement. As the program points out what they buy is name and number. So I suppose if the person involved showed up in court and demanded any sort of confirmation of debt (like original bills perhaps?) then the case would be dismissed. After all the company needs some proof. But they overload the courts and if no one shows up to defend then the default judgement goes in favor of the debt collector. And then they go and collect with the power of law behind them. This is crazy but that's how they roll in the land of the free :)
- ben1040 10y agoThe statute of limitations applies to whether the creditor can go to court. Since these debts we're talking about are older than that, getting a judgment is off the table. That's also why they were sold for a fraction of a penny on the dollar -- the only way you could collect on them is to call the debtors and hassle them. At this point those debtors are probably also wise to the fact that you have no legal power to enforce.
- edko 10y agoIf all they have is a name and number, can they really go to court, and win, with that alone, even if the presumed debtor does not show up?
- zimpenfish 10y agoThere's a good few examples of "bully and harass the debtors until they pay" in his segment. Most disheartening.
- ceejayoz 10y agoAny amount of payment, I believe, so they're likely offering seemingly generous "settlements" with tiny monthly payments.
- dogma1138 10y agoApparently pretty much anything including answering a phone call under some jurisdictions. Pretty much they can hook you in by calling you and saying "Good day Mr. Smith you have a debt for 50$ to Acme Medical do you want to hear about our debt relief plan with payments as low as 1$ a month". If at any point you seem to show any response to it they can use it to prove that you've acknowledged the debt at which point they can go to court and force you to pay. The laws should be made that way that debt that has expunged is not tradeable or actionable in any way period.
- yardie 10y agoThey can call and you can ask but if you say the debt is not yours or you don't recognise it that is not an acknowledgement.
- dogma1138 10y agoWell yes, but most people won't be able to not to put their foot in their mouth. Oddly enough saying "the debt is past this statutory limit and cannot be forcibly collected" might actually be an acknowledgement of the debt by itself. All the laws regarding this are completely bonkers.
- Siecje 10y agoWouldn't it still be outstanding on your credit report. It's debt that you didn't pay. How long does it stay on your credit report?
- desigooner 10y agoIIRC, these accounts fall off the credit report in 7 years from the date that was deemed as last activity date on that account.
- Siecje 10y agoSo why would anyone declare bankruptcy?
- csours 10y agoIf you are sued and found liable for more money than you can reasonably pay, you are more or less forced into bankruptcy. Declaring bankruptcy generally lets you keep your primary house and car; without bankruptcy those could be taken from you.
- brokentone 10y agoWell defaulted medical debt is in a different category than regular debt.
- CaptSpify 10y agoHow so?
- brokentone 10y agoSome of the difference: > differentiating medical from non-medical collection agency accounts. This will help ensure that medical collections have a lower impact on the score, commensurate with the credit risk they represent. These enhancements help lenders because it leads to a more predictive score. The median FICO Score for consumers whose only major negative references are medical collections will increase by 25 points. http://www.fico.com/en/newsroom/fico-score-9-introduces-refined-analysis-of-medical-collections http://www.fico.com/en/newsroom/fico-score-9-introduces-refi... http://time.com/money/3092005/fico-credit-score-changes-fair-isaac/ http://time.com/money/3092005/fico-credit-score-changes-fair...
- deaddodo 10y agoThis is not even in the least bit true. The credit report "debt clock" is static. Activity, acknowledgement, etc matters not. The debt is only valid six months from delinquency to seven years post that date. Period.
- wjnc 10y agoThat would mean he could probably pay it off at a discount?
- brianwawok 10y agoHe probably bought 15 million in uncollectible debt for like $1500
- johnpowell 10y agoHe says what he paid. It was 60K.
- rory 10y agoA huge discount-- they only payed $60k for the debt.
- robbiep 10y agoexcept payment isnt going to the people who were originally owed it - payment is going to the last agency which owned it, and can't collect on it
- ec109685 10y agoThey bought the debt (at least indirectly) from the people who were originally owed it.
- tkyjonathan 10y agoYes, but the people who owed it, now have less issues with credit checks and such. Maybe it will make it possible for them to be able to buy more medicine.
- dannypgh 10y agoExcept you have the right to tell debt collectors to stop contacting you (sue or get off the pot, essentially) over any given debt, and they face statutory damages if they ignore that. See paragraph c of https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/1692c https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/1692c or https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Debt_Collection_Practices_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Debt_Collection_Practic... IANAL.
- MattSteelblade 10y agoMy own personal experience with this is that they'll move the debt to another agency and the process begins anew.
- veidr 10y agoDebt doesn't magically (or legally) stop existing after a set period of time. It's just that legal means to enforce collection expire. I once (in the early 1990s) refused to pay a company I was very unhappy with -- IIRC it was Verizon. They cancelled my service, tried to collect, then sold the debt after a while. I still get these offers to settle the debt for 70% less than the total -- but the letters always include a disclaimer somewhere to the effect of "due to the age of this debt, you will not be sued, and this will not be reported to any credit bureau".
- Dirlewanger 10y agoBut it had to have affected your credit to some degree in the past though, right?
- veidr 10y agoYes. I was so pissed off with that company that I refused to pay "on principle", but they were pretty dubious principles actually — I really did owe the money, and nonpayment was probably not in my own best interests. My failure to pay stayed as a negative event ("serious delinquency") on my credit report with each of the major credit bureaus, for roughly 7 years, just like it is supposed to. Then it disappeared.
- anonymfus 10y agoSpoiler in the title.
- neiled 10y agoAs has been mentioned elsewhere, it seems the real 'value' of this debt to people buying it, is not the debt itself because it can't legally be enforced, but the personal information that goes along with it.
- acveilleux 10y agoAt the price they paid, it's around $6.66 per person. They'd have paid a lot less for a lot more debt if they hadn't bought medical debt. And that's not even resorting to illegal means.
- sethbannon 10y agoI'm not aware of any other show that so seamlessly combines rip-roaringly funny comedy with essential insight into the way our society and system of government is deeply flawed. And on top of that, he even manages to direct action to fix the issues he draws attention to -- taking down the FCC website being one example[1]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/03/john-oliver-fcc-website-net-neutrality https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/03/john-oliv...
- rev_null 10y agoThe only other show that comes to mind is The Daily Show, of which John Oliver is an alumnus.
- mhurron 10y agoTrevor Noah is too nice though.
- daveguy 10y agoHe is growing into the role.
- JazCE 10y agois he? It's been a little while since i've watched [his] show, maybe the last one was with Ricky Gervais. I don't have the same urgency, there isn't a bite to the way he presents. I miss watching the correspondents though, Jessica Williams and Jordan Klepper are both awesome and they have been put to use a lot more. Sam Bee's full frontal and Oliver's Last Week Tonight are now both my staples of american news consumption.
- qmr 10y agoI haven't felt urge to watch a single episode with him.
- 10y ago
- ff10 10y agoWasn't there a similar initiative in the aftermath of the recent financial crisis? With the difference that private people could help out indebted individuals on a smaller scale with some proxy gross debt buyer?
- sergiotapia 10y agoI don't get how an insurance won't cover something. Isn't that the point of Obama forcing you to buy insurance these days?
- waterphone 10y agoInsurance still doesn't cover many things, and most of the low-cost plans have such high deductibles ($10,000 is common) they're practically useless for all but emergency room visits where $10,000 goes by in your first day.
- ssmoot 10y agoThere's still annual maximums, in-network coverage, PMO, HMO, etc. The minimums can be pretty basic. It looks like the ACA doesn't really do anything to change the picture for a $474,000 medical bill. The guy got charged $39 each for over 200 glucose checks. That's the price of a new meter for every check.
- rincebrain 10y agoActually, annual maximums on ("essential") benefits are illegal under the ACA[1] - the only "annual maximums" allowed are for {deductible, out of pocket}, at which point they are supposed to cover 100% of covered claims. I don't obviously see the specific anecdote you're discussing in the thread, so I can't tell if what transpired is because it (somehow) didn't blow either of those thresholds, or because it wasn't an "essential" benefit, or simply pre-dated those terms of the ACA becoming effective. [1] - http://www.hhs.gov/healthcare/about-the-law/benefit-limits/index.html http://www.hhs.gov/healthcare/about-the-law/benefit-limits/i...
- ssmoot 10y agoThanks for correcting me. I could've sworn I saw annual maximums when I looked on healthcare.gov but maybe I mistook the max out of pocket for a max annual. The example I used is the case presented in the video. I just googled for Bob Weinkauf. http://writingshares.com/cnn-anderson-cooper-medical-news-video-bob-weinkauf-gets-474000-hospital-bill/ http://writingshares.com/cnn-anderson-cooper-medical-news-vi... I was also curious when this happened. Looks likely to be under the ACA unless it took years to hit the news though. So I don't know. Maybe he went to the emergency room and it was out of network under his plan, leaving him to shoulder the costs. I didn't dig much after skimming for an approximate date.
- tyoma 10y agoWont the debtors have to report the forgiven debt as income on their taxes, potenially triggering a very difficult tax situation?
- bcruddy 10y agoHe mentions, without going into detail, that the forgiveness is structured in a way to avoid a tax burden for the debtor. I have no idea how this works but I think it's a safe assumption that people who know more about this than I do will comb through it and John Oliver and company have vetted their own process.
- barbs 10y agoHe says he sent it to a non-profit organisation (looks like RIPx Medical Debt) which "specialises in forgiving medical debt with no tax consequences for the debtor". I'd try and find some links but I'm currently on my phone.
- AstroJetson 10y agoSite is here: https://www.ripmedicaldebt.org/ https://www.ripmedicaldebt.org/ Actually it's pretty simple. They figure out who needs the debt relief. They then go buy the debt for pennies on the dollar from one of the companies that has it. Then they forget about it. (I'd say they just delete the Excel file it's in, but there is lots of negative karma going on above this post about how wonderful Excel is) From their website "Through sophisticated data analytics, RIP analyzes its medical debt portfolios to pinpoint those who are most in need of relief and then negotiates to purchase this debt for a significantly reduced amount – rates typically made available only to large organizations in the debt buying industry. Once this debt is purchased – debtors are unburdened of this unpaid item." So Oliver just gave them $14+ million in debt that he paid pennies on the dollar for and the are going to ignore it. Remember it's been written off (as a tax benefit) already, so it's only the debt people that care about it. Last guy that cared got paid by Oliver, so he's good to go.
- joshstrange 10y agoHmm, that's the right site but right now all you get is the WP install walkthrough....
- trengrj 10y agoGeorestricted in Australia.. Anyone have a summary?
- barbs 10y agoYou can see it on Facebook: https://facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=912968418832168&id=479042895558058 https://facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=912968418832168&id...
- sdwisely 10y agoalso in australia: "Sorry, this page isn't available The link you followed may be broken, or the page may have been removed."
- ashitlerferad 10y agoUse the Tor Browser.
- vittore 10y agoWhy there is no non-profit here that gets donations and spent them to wipe out medical and general debt that is the cheapest available on the market right now? Or are there ?
- goda90 10y agoThere are some. Like http://rollingjubilee.org/ http://rollingjubilee.org/
- xhrpost 10y ago"But as of December 31st, 2013, we have stopped accepting new donations."
- dannypgh 10y agoThe tactic seems questionable. I'd rather give money to people who provide legal assistance to folks getting hassled by debt collectors, and spread information about people's rights under the FDCPA and other laws. The reason for that being, buying up bad paper raises the value of it, whereas letting people know their rights lowers the value of it. If bad paper was worth less, debt originators would have stronger incentives to work something out with their insolvent customers rather than sell to shady debt collectors.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- xseven 10y agobad idea, that's like validating the debt buying industry
- pyvpx 10y agoguess what the US Dollar is backed by? guess what many monetary systems have been based on for quite sometime? debt!
- orblivion 10y agoThere's a program called The Rolling Jubilee which has been doing this for a few years. I think the idea is that it encourages people to help pay off the next person's debt, since the amount they were forgiven is much more than it cost to buy it: http://rollingjubilee.org/ http://rollingjubilee.org/ I believe that this is an offshoot of the Occupy movement.
- xhrpost 10y ago"But as of December 31st, 2013, we have stopped accepting new donations." Would love to see someone new come in and start doing the same.
- orblivion 10y agoOops. Well, looks like they have something new: https://debtcollective.org/ https://debtcollective.org/ EDIT: I'm not sure what their tactics are or whether I'd support them. I did like the jubilee approach.
- cdetrio 10y agoThe pivot from rollingjubilee.org (which uses donations to buy discounted debt and abolish it) to debtcollective.org (where debtors can register and organize "debt strikes") was explained in a NYT column[1]: > Until now, we have worked in the secondary debt market, using crowdfunded donations to buy portfolios of medical and educational debts for pennies on the dollar, just as debt collectors do. Only, instead of collecting on them, we abolish them, operating under the belief that people shouldn’t go into debt for getting sick or going to school. [.....] But this approach has its limits. Federal loans, for example, are guaranteed by the government, and debtors can be freed of them — via bankruptcy — only under exceedingly rare circumstances. That means they aren’t sold at steep discounts and remain out of our reach. What’s more, America’s mountain of student debt is too immense for the Jubilee to make a significant dent in it. Real change will require more organized actions like those taken by the Corinthian 15. Its not surprising that they lost traction after the pivot. Buying discounted debt is a tactic which respects the logic of the market. Debt strikes go against the cultural norm of treating debt as a moral obligation. 1. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/28/opinion/a-strike-against-student-debt.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/28/opinion/a-strike-against-s...
- dvcrn 10y agoAs a non-american guy that has never seen John Oliver before, I found it very hard to sit through the entire thing until the end, though the payoff was definitely worth it. This guys looks to me like he's been in TV for a little too long and tries very hard to find a audience with very simple jokes (that feel kind of forced) amplified by background laughter. He has the right idea and did the right thing but I personally would have found it more enjoyable without the jokes.
- pas 10y agoAmerica, a country where politics is a tragicomedy, comedy is about politics, and which is actually a continent.
- rev_null 10y agoTwo continents, even.
- wccrawford 10y agoI like a lot of his jokes, but I think there are too many of them, and too many are just "hey, here's a meme I remembered!" But without them, I think his show would fall flat with most of his audience, so I don't think he really has a choice about them at this point.
- therealdrag0 10y agoYeah, just a bunch of absurd similes does not represent good writing.
- sp332 10y agoHe does the same thing every week, so his audience is jaded.
- bayesian_horse 10y agoI feel relatively well versed in American "culture", but I still don't get a lot of the references he makes. On the other hand, I still laugh at many jokes and his rants on Trump are just epic.
- ChicagoBoy11 10y agoI'm obviously wrong about this, but I'm surprised there isn't a greater arbitrage opportunity in this -- if one could average out just $10 in collection on average, you'd make a sizable profit on the debt he bought... I wonder if you were to just call and tell these people you bought these debts, and if they'd like to make a donation to help you keep doing this work in the future, I'm curious if it could be self-sustaining...
- 1024core 10y agoThe cost of collecting that $10 may turn out to be more than $10....
- ColinWright 10y agoGeorestricted: The uploader has not made this video available in your country Someone else provided a different link: https://facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=912968418832168&id=479042895558058 https://facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=912968418832168&id... That returns with: Sorry, this page isn't available The link you followed may be broken, or the page may have been removed. I look forward to the day we finally realise we are out of the transition period between not having the web at all, and the web working properly, with content makers being properly resourced and rewarded. Good job I'll live forever - if I have a normal lifespan I doubt I'd see it.
- stephen_g 10y agoI can't watch the YouTube video either, but searching for the Last Week Tonight page on Facebook I found it there.
- eric_h 10y agoAh yes, Facebook video is still in the pre-Content ID honeymoon period that youtube enjoyed before Viacom (IIRC) threatened to destroy it's business altogether.
- fredley 10y agoI think we've already transitioned through that period.
- a_bonobo 10y agoJulia Reda, MP for the German Pirate Party with Greens/EFA in the European Parliament, has recently launched a campaign to introduce EU laws against geoblocking: https://juliareda.eu/2016/05/end-geoblocking/ https://juliareda.eu/2016/05/end-geoblocking/ So there's a little bit of movement, I guess?
- mseebach 10y agoIt's unlikely that a law on geo blocking in the EU will have much effect over US content. But besides that, it's a great idea that will entrench cable companies for a few more years and delay the transition to streaming by forcing streaming services to compete against every single cable and satellite operator in the EU at the same time (cable/sat firms aren't part of the digital single market, so they can keep carrying on). Is there content that is specifically relevant to Estonians, but for various reasons thorny to license in France? That's going to suck for the Estonians. One might assume that Netflix (or another one of the streaming services) might grab the broadcast rights to a major sporting event (traditionally the domain of cable/satellite, and the last good reason to keep this around for many consumers) -- this proposal makes sure that day won't happen until they can grab the rights for the entire EU zone, which is obviously hugely expensive. It's not hard to imagine that it might make more sense (and be a lot easier) to grab the rights in a single, small-ish, well connected market (say Netherland) as a pilot, then leave, say, the UK for a few years later until broadband outside the cities get good enough to support at decent HD stream. Major sporting events is of course only one such example. Plenty of content will suffer the same fate. Another victim is license fee supported content. Especially the BBC relies on re-licensing high quality content in other european markets. This income subsidises the UK operation. If forced to not geoblock this content, the BBC will have to chose between foregoing significant licensing income, or to stop streaming altogether.
- SCAQTony 10y agoAt the 17:06 mark is when he drops the surprise news about buying up the debt.
- jccc 10y agoThe title of this post focuses on one aspect of the episode in a way that has badly skewed our discussion. The point of the episode is not John Oliver's Oprah stunt, but rather how the debt collection industry works. [The original title is/was: "John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'"]
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- tlrobinson 10y agoNote that this didn't actually cost them $15M, they bought the debt for $60K.
- evolve2k 10y agoUmm isn't that sort of the whole point.
- tlrobinson 10y agoIt's not at all obvious how much they actually paid, and comparing it to Oprah's $8M car giveaway is certainly dramatic but pretty disingenuous. It's unlikely the debtors would have ever ended up repaying anything close to $15M (in fact, presumably closer to $60K)
- nacs 10y agoHe stated exactly how much they paid for that $15m debt in the video and even how they wrote off most of the cost of the taxes they would have had to pay it in the video.
- tlrobinson 10y agoOf course, that's where I got the $60k figure from, but that one sentence could easily have been missed by anyone dazzled by the big number in the headline and comparison to Oprah's giveaway, assuming they even watched the whole 20 minute video in the first place.
- bayesian_horse 10y agoMake Donald Drumpf again!
- th0ma5 10y agoIf a company writes off a debt, then haven't tax payers already paid the debt?
- pfarnsworth 10y agoAren't there tax implications for forgiving the debt?
- zimpenfish 10y agoMaybe. "Topic 431 - Canceled Debt – Is It Taxable or Not?" https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc431.html https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc431.html
- nacs 10y agoYes there is, in the video, Oliver mentions how they hired a company that specializes in handling the tax implications so they wouldn't have to pay the full amount.
- pessimizer 10y agoI was a little disappointed in how this story developed; it started with a family being destroyed by medical debt, and I thought it was going to develop into a discussion of medical debt, which accounts for 60% of bankruptcies in the U.S.[1]. Instead, it just talked about the buying and selling of debt, which is a legitimate business (often unregulated and operated by scum.) I'm not sure what he was calling for, here. That companies be required to hold on to their own debt? I'm happy about the debt he forgave, though. An organization called Rolling Jubilee[2] does it without a tv show - you can buy someone's debt, too. I didn't notice a shout out; did I just miss it? edit: learned from the comment above me that they've stopped doing it, and are now The Debt Collective[3], an advocacy organization. [1] https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/health/managing-medical-bills/nerdwallet-health-study-estimates-56-million-americans-65-struggle-medical-bills-2013/ https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/health/managing-medical-bill... [2] http://rollingjubilee.org/ http://rollingjubilee.org/ [3] http://blog.debtcollective.org/ http://blog.debtcollective.org/
- scotty79 10y ago> legitimate business (often unregulated and operated by scum.) That's comedy gold. Wish John used that line. > I'm not sure what he was calling for, here. That companies be required to hold on to their own debt? I think he's calling for regulation. At least some mechanisms to ensure that the debt is factual. Maybe some mechanisms that would ensure people can't collect the debt that they can't legally enforce. Maybe some mechanisms that would prevent accepting debt by default when someone doesn't show up to court. All these things lead to much abuse. Basically something that would address the problems he highlighted.
- MichaelBurge 10y agoYou could probably use debt forgiveness as a collection technique: If the person doesn't agree to start paying it back, you threaten to forgive the entire amount all at once in a way that is not tax-advantageous. Now you owe taxes on your $80k of extra income(forgiven debt), and the government is less lenient than banks when they're collecting tax debt. They might eventually be able to get it discharged, but it'd require them to declare bankruptcy. I don't know: It might be too subtle to scare people with. The kinds of people who could easily understand this tactic in a one-page letter are probably not the kinds of people in debt.
- talmand 10y agoHow exactly is forgiven debt considered income?
- MichaelBurge 10y agoAs creditor, you file a form 1099-C with the IRS: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1099c.pdf https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1099c.pdf The borrower also gets a copy, and the IRS will know to look for it when the borrower files his taxes.
- zimpenfish 10y agoJust to add a bit of context around that PDF - "Topic 431 - Canceled Debt – Is It Taxable or Not?" https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc431.html https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc431.html
- SilasX 10y agoBecause if it weren't, you could take all your compensation/revenue as an (untaxed) "loan" that you never pay back. "What? I don't owe any taxes! That was all a loan!"
- talmand 10y agoI guess I had a too simplistic viewpoint on the matter, how a contract is ended between two private parties shouldn't involve the government unless some form of criminal activity has been done. As for the compensation idea, I'm assuming you mean from employment, I would have to hope that's already covered by the income tax laws where there are guidelines in what determines compensation from employment and what is considered employment. Many people have tried many schemes around that one. Besides, even if someone tried something like that it's quite a bit different than a debt owed to the hospital because they performed surgery on you. But from what I'm reading from the links provided the government doesn't get involved until the owner of the debt files the form to involve them. Which seems odd in of itself to me. It's almost like a punishment placed on the party owing the debt from the owner of the debt through the powers of the state; which is odd since the owner has decided to not collect. But then again, I'm not familiar with laws governing debt so I'm sure there's some elaborate nuance I'm not understanding.
- rm2889 10y agoIf debt is trading at pennies on the dollar, and I owe someone 5k, what's stopping me from borrowing 50 or 100 bucks from a friend (if I dont have it) and buying back my debt? Do you need to buy in bulk? Here's an idea - aggregate debt at pennies on the dollar and sell it back to the debtor at twice the amount it'll still be pennies on the dollar and you'll make a nice profit.
- mcherm 10y agoThat's called "settling" the debt -- and debt collectors try it all the time. Quite often it does not work.
- awesomerobot 10y ago>Here's an idea - aggregate debt at pennies on the dollar and sell it back to the debtor at twice the amount it'll still be pennies on the dollar and you'll make a nice profit. That's essentially what a lot of debt collectors will accept. If you have debt in collection, sometimes you can offer them a lump sum instead of the whole amount and they'll take it because they're looking to simply profit. At that point it's likely your credit is already ruined though... which is a whole different topic to broach.
- k-mcgrady 10y ago>> "At that point it's likely your credit is already ruined though... which is a whole different topic to broach." In the UK at least getting passed to a debt collector should have no impact on your credit score. It's when they decide to go further and recoup it through court that you start to get hurt. This is my experience at least. It makes sense as I know many people who have been passed to debt collectors for debts they didn't owe so it would be a mess if that effected their credit.
- jdmichal 10y agoIt doesn't matter in the US either. What matters here is days late. Anything over 30 days gets noted under the credit line, and will stick around there for a couple years or so. Unsure what happens to the mark once the debt is settled.
- igorgue 10y agoYou went all aspie on it and missed the point.
- dang 10y agoPersonal attacks and name-calling are not allowed here. Please (re)-read the site guidelines and follow them. That means posting civil, substantive comments, or not posting. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11846818 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11846818 and marked it off-topic.
- igorgue 10y agoKindof ironic it's allowed everywhere like this presidential race.
- S_A_P 10y agoIn a former life I was a developer for a collections agency. I can confirm that we got data from financial institutions in a variety of formats. Most of the time they were PGP encrypted, sometimes as low as 56 bit IIRC. This was in 2007 so I have slept since then.
- rememberlenny 10y agoSerious question: Does that count as a 15 million dollar tax write off?
- MrJagil 10y agoThere was a terrific story about this in the NYT a while back https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8182953 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8182953 "This is one of the most unbelievable articles I've ever read. If you didn't read it all the way through, do so over lunch or something; it's amazing."
- nthacker 10y agoI have a question: Isn't the real reason that these debt-buying companies(and the evils that come with it) exist because of bad-lending and in this case, an overpriced, inefficient health-care system?
- throwaway745234 10y agoTime to start a benevolent/not-for-profit dept collection company that buys dept and then requests their clients in dept repay 0.5% of the original amount they owed just to cover the costs.
- dghughes 10y agoCan the debt John forgave be resurrected by another debt collection agency? The video mentioned several scenarios where debt that's seemingly past it collection date or expired is still desired by these collection companies. Or is forgiving the debt officially the only way of forever getting rid of it without fear of it coming back from the dead.
- bruce_one 10y agoAnyone want to start a Kickstarter/Indiegogo to do something similar? (Eg, raise money and use it to buy debt and do nothing with it) I'd back it :-)