If you're employing "ignore it until it goes away" as a debt mitigation strategy you probably aren't in a position to be buying a house (or a car, or whatever)

If you're employing "ignore it until it goes away" as a debt mitigation strategy you probably aren't in a position to be buying a house (or a car, or whatever) any time soon. Having a 400 FICO score is not a "real consequence" to anyone who's in this situation. At any rate, I'm just pointing out that it's a thing you can do, not advocating it as one you should do. As an aside, I think a lot of the HN audience would be surprised at just how many people in America do take advantage of this. Being constantly broke really changes your decision making paradigm.