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Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

It's quite possible to do more via lawsuits, especially in California. One guy got a judgment against Bank of America and showed up at a branch with sheriff's deputies and a moving van to seize property.[1] He was paid very quickly.

I once had a business refuse to pay me after a small claims judgment. I paid the sheriff's office for a "till tap" and an "8 hour keeper".[2] That means a sheriff's deputy (usually two of them) goes to the business, shows the court order, and takes the money out of the cash register, arresting anyone who gets in the way. If there's not enough money on hand, the deputies stand behind the register and take in money during the business day until the judgment is paid. The fee for this is about $85, which gets added on to the judgment. It worked for me.

[1] http://business.time.com/2011/06/06/homeowner-forecloses-on-...

[2] http://www.dca.ca.gov/publications/small_claims/collect.shtm...

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For a till tap, do deputies compel the business owners to open the till, or is there some kind of skeleton key that law enforcement use?

I assume that's where "arresting anyone who gets in the way" comes in

I think it is the courts that have compelled the business owner to open the till. The deputies are just enforcing the court's judgement.

Skeleton keys are a plot device in children's cartoons.

Not for warded locks [1]

They're more common that you'd think.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeleton_key

And the TSA.

The seller who sold the doctored database in the article though... Looks like he really had nothing left to take. No business left = no cash register, no cash.

The people calling the victim up had paid for the loan database and the uncollected debt, so they legitimately think that they are owed money. They are victims themselves.

Still, the initial guy who threatened to rape his wife needs to go to prison. Even their belief that the debt is legitimate is wishful thinking at best. What kind of honest person would choose a career like that? Buying questionable debt and then threatening people for it? They've got to know that they're part of a scam, and even if they don't, they do know that threatening people is bad.

If the debt is legitimate, you take it to court, get a judgement, and if necessary, show up on their door with police. I have no sympathy for people who willingly make themselves tools of such a scam.

The businesses around here have signs to the effect that employees do not have access to the cash, and at least one won't let the employee touch cash (as in they physically can't). I wonder how the till works in that case.

That's the "8 hour keeper". The deputy stands behind the counter, with the cashier, and takes in the money. Checks are written to the county, rather than the store. As one law firm writes "Installing a keeper can be an effective way of opening up settlement dialogue with the debtor. For example, we recently installed a keeper at a tutoring center in Orange County. The business does not collect many payments daily, but the keeper levy was nonetheless very effective because the debtor was forced to explain to its customers why the sheriff was at the business. It caused the debtor to quickly come to the table to discuss resolution."

Only once have I ever seen a sheriff's deputy doing a keeper. They were explaining to each customer that the business had failed to pay its debts and had a court judgment against them, so all payments had to be made to the country to settle the debt. Most business owners will pay up within minutes rather than have a day, or a week, of that. Even if they have to take out a loan.

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