Hacker News Reader

Comment by jandrese | Hacker News Reader

It's not just the 7 years on your credit score, it's having collection agencies hound you incessantly. It's having people constantly trying to scam your bank to drain your account. It is legal threats against you, your family, your friends, your employer, etc...

You're basically dropping you bloody name to a pool of sharks who have little respect for what is legal or ethical.

View on HN

> It is legal threats against you, your family, your friends, your employer, etc...

If any debt collector is brave enough to do any of this I'm documenting all of it and suing the everloving pants off of them. Because that is harassment.

With what money?

Does Saul do “no win no fee”?

Tough crowd. No sense of humour.

any consumer rights attorney will take debt collector abuse cases on contingency - 40% cut. Abuse is so rampant (at least it was after the last financial crisis) it literally is like playing whack-a-mole for $1k/pop for every violation. A collector that repeatedly called my place of employment after being told I couldn't accept calls there, and threatened jail time, was forced to pay me $10k to me for their violations (and 8k to my attorney) on my counterclaim in addition to having their suit against me thrown out -- this was a law office that purchased debts and blanket sued and strongarmed/scared people into paying via violations of the FDCPA.. it's worth it for them because 90% of people give in and don't know their rights. It's even more worth it for those individuals that do understand the law and their rights.

Just document all calls, save all letters, and get a good grasp of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and any state-level equivalent (Rosenthal in CA) -- in CA you get to shoot the violators with a double barrel for federal AND state violations.

Having the major credit card companies increase my APR to 30% in 2009 having never missed a payment on anything in my life, while being backstopped via TARP and having literal 0% Fed/interbank lending rates blew my top off and I decided giving them the finger was my individual right of protest and damn the consequences. Little did I know I was entering an exciting world of learning how to beat the bottom feeders at their own game. Never paid a dime, made about $20k suing for violations, and my credit score was above 700 within 4 years and after everything fell off (7 years) it's like it never happened. But I'll never forget it - was pretty damn exciting to be honest.

Very interesting indeed, have you written about this anywhere I can read more?

No - at the time I used forums (think creditboards or something like that and others) which have very helpful "armchair experts" that give excellent advice. Lots of form letters/response letters can be found and modified to suit your specifics. Many good strategies can be found and adapted down to the specific collection agency, etc. One of those things all the info is easily 'googled' and just gotta put in the hours reading and understanding how it all works, then use it to your advantage.

It's basically trying to get them to trip up and make a mistake - and it blew my mind how often and unabashedly these collection agencies would! Hell even BofA and Chase violated before they sold the debt off and I got an immediate removal from my report and the debt wiped away / no more collections (I was happy just to make things 'disappear' in these instances..didn't put money in my pocket but at the time is was a huge win, as one can imagine).

This is f-cking gold man, I understand if you want to leave it all behind you, but there are millions of people suffering out there like you were. If you could write this up and monetize somehow, could be very lucrative and beneficial to a lot of people.

You should write a blog post on it. Seriously..

I declared bankruptcy 9 years ago and literally none of that happened. I even hired a cheap shyster lawyer. I never got so much as a phone call.

Your mighty President kept doing it for years multiple times. And he seems to be doing fine (the wealth part, not the politics part).

What does it mean to be "hounded" by collection agencies? I've allowed some of my debts to go unpaid because I considered repayment to be a poor deal. Yes, I've received phone calls, which I answered and calmly informed the caller that (a) the conversation was being recorded; and (b) this was the last time they called me because I was invoking the FDCPA. I've never had to repeat this more than twice.

Yes, I've received things in the mail, which I simply threw into paper recycling. Eventually, these stopped as well.

A debt collector has yet to physically come to my home, however, having grown up in 1990s Russia, I'm prepared to take care of them in a swift, permanent, and legal way.

> I've allowed some of my debts to go unpaid because I considered repayment to be a poor deal.

Could you elaborate on this? I don't know if it's what you intended but it just comes off like you defrauded a company.

If defaulting on a debt is fraud, then why do lenders charge a premium for credit risk?

They do it because, in most cases, it is not fraud - defaults are just a fact of business. Being a lender is not a ticket to free, zero-risk money.

Both parties in a lender/borrower transaction understand that there is a risk of default, as well as consequences for a default. In a secured loan, the borrower loses the secured item. In an unsecured loan, more of the risk falls to the lender (which is why unsecured loans have much higher interest rates.)

of course, but my interpretation of OP's comment was that they went into a purchase with the intent of defaulting. To me, that's fraudulent - IANAL but that would seem to be legally fraud too. It's really no different from chargeback scams.

It's only fraud if you take out the loan with the intention of not repaying it. sigfubar never says when he came to the conclusion that repaying the loan is a bad idea. If it's any point after he took out the loan, it's not fraud.

You would really shoot them if they just rang your doorbell? Or do they try to enter your home and arrest you? Why such drastic measures?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com