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I love the legal epistemology of "RIP does have a pure heart" because it is a 501c3 with the purity defined in its incorporation documents, as opposed to the un

I love the legal epistemology of "RIP does have a pure heart" because it is a 501c3 with the purity defined in its incorporation documents, as opposed to the unknown or presumably self-interested purity level of the company CARP or the person John Oliver. I wonder: can you see who is in the debt portfolios before you buy them? Or even amounts and rough locations or services? This would be enough to identify people in some cases, maybe even yourself! Let's say you owe $500k for some operation and you can't pay it, won't ever pay it, and just plan on declaring bankruptcy or letting it accrue interest and get traded around until you die. But lets say you decide it would be best if you didn't have the debt; maybe you want to buy a house someday. What would stop you from buying the portfolio with your debt in it for say, $15k, and forgiving everybody, including yourself? Anyone else who buys the portfolio is going to tell you that you still owe $500k plus interest, but will give you a generous payment plan for $350k or something.

pnutjam 8y ago
For $500k, your going to get sued. They're going to get something out of you and garnish your wages forever. You'll probably have to pay something even under bankruptcy, because of the bankruptcy changes under Bush. That debt will never get resold like this. If you have something smaller, maybe $5k, you might not get sued, depending on how difficult it is for them to sue you. Once the debt gets so old it's uncollectable (7 years), it might end up in one of these traded portfolios. There is generally no reason anyone would ever pay these debts and it's probably not even impacting your credit at that point. I'm guessing most of this debt is over 7 years old, or very close to that date.
- potentialdebto2 8y ago
  Right, the John Oliver portfolio was out-of-statute, meaning nobody was legally required to pay it, but if a collector can get the debtor to acknowledge or make any payments on the debt, it completely restarts (never acknowledge or agree to make payments on debt over the phone!). Looks like one would get garnished to the max for 3-5 years after (Chapter 13) bankruptcy. If I ever get seriously ill and faced high medical bills, the first thing I would do is take most of my non-exempt (basically, not retirement accounts) assets and buy a cheap house, since in my state (Texas) the entire value of your homestead is bankruptcy exempt. This is assuming I have the health to do so, of course. I have a high enough credit score and income that the hospital would assume that I could pay, and existing lines of credit to pay for out-of-pocket stuff. edit: you could really go nuts with the exemptions! Put in a pool, buy one of these [1], fine home furnishings etc. [1] https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/king-james-bible/first-edition/sortby/1/page-1/ https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/king-james-bible/...
  - ikeboy 8y ago
    People have done this after being sued, moved to a state with protections and poured assets into a house.

pnutjam 8y ago

For $500k, your going to get sued. They're going to get something out of you and garnish your wages forever. You'll probably have to pay something even under bankruptcy, because of the bankruptcy changes under Bush. That debt will never get resold like this. If you have something smaller, maybe $5k, you might not get sued, depending on how difficult it is for them to sue you. Once the debt gets so old it's uncollectable (7 years), it might end up in one of these traded portfolios. There is generally no reason anyone would ever pay these debts and it's probably not even impacting your credit at that point. I'm guessing most of this debt is over 7 years old, or very close to that date.

potentialdebto2 8y ago
Right, the John Oliver portfolio was out-of-statute, meaning nobody was legally required to pay it, but if a collector can get the debtor to acknowledge or make any payments on the debt, it completely restarts (never acknowledge or agree to make payments on debt over the phone!). Looks like one would get garnished to the max for 3-5 years after (Chapter 13) bankruptcy. If I ever get seriously ill and faced high medical bills, the first thing I would do is take most of my non-exempt (basically, not retirement accounts) assets and buy a cheap house, since in my state (Texas) the entire value of your homestead is bankruptcy exempt. This is assuming I have the health to do so, of course. I have a high enough credit score and income that the hospital would assume that I could pay, and existing lines of credit to pay for out-of-pocket stuff. edit: you could really go nuts with the exemptions! Put in a pool, buy one of these [1], fine home furnishings etc. [1] https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/king-james-bible/first-edition/sortby/1/page-1/ https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/king-james-bible/...
- ikeboy 8y ago
  People have done this after being sued, moved to a state with protections and poured assets into a house.