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Comment by core-utility | Hacker News Reader

That's typically what cancellation fees or early termination fees are for.

Only works for post paid plans.

But are those actually enforceable? You'd have to take someone to court to get wage garnishment for the value.

Isn't it usually the other way around in the US? Can't they just send you a bill and then send it to collections if you don't pay? Seems like usually the onus is on the debtor to prove the debt isn't legit not the other way around.

Collections in the US can't really do anything from my experience. I had some $24 debt that when I offered to settle the debt collector hung up on me.

Sure if you owe someone $150,000 and have a net worth of $500,000 they'll take you to court. But over a cell phone, that probably is not going to happen.

Also when the debt is sent to collections the originator only gets about 1/10 the cost.

The threat to send it to collections does have some power to convince people to pay.

Yeah I didn't really consider that perspective.

They can ruin your credit score and make it difficult or impossible to get any new credit/debt.

That might be the justification, though they given the amount they sink into lobbying, a solution would have long been found if the pushed for it. Much better financial incentive to lock in your clients and blame it on unenforceable laws.

Wage garnishment is a $500 solution for a 50 cent problem.

If you owe money on the phone, it's not your phone. Whoever you got it from should have the ability (technically and legally) to just brick it remotely.

Of course it's your phone. That's how modern finance works. The only purchases you're likely to make that accrue equity in a legal/contractual framework are cars and homes. Once that phone is in your hands, it's yours to do with as you wish.

The last couple years notwithstanding, cars are about the least likely thing to accrue equity.

If you have a loan on something, it's not yours. If you stop paying your car payment, they take it away. If you stop paying your mortgage, they kick you out. (And neither of these absolves your financial responsibility). I don't think it's particularly surprising to suggest that if you haven't paid for your phone yet, whoever gave it to you still owns it.

But I never suggested you can't "do with it as you wish" only that bricking the phone was a perfectly reasonable way to ensure that it was paid for in full in the example of someone getting a subsidized phone but wanting to switch carriers a few months in - which should be allowed, provided you pay back the subsidization.

> If you stop paying your mortgage, they kick you out. (And neither of these absolves your financial responsibility).

12 states have 'non-recourse' mortgages, where if your mortgage is foreclosed on, the lender has no legal avenue to recover the difference if sale does not recover the principal.

More generally, what provides for recourse isn't the vague idea that 'you're still making payments'. It's a signed contract saying they can. No contract, no recourse. Contract terms for things like cars and homes are heavily regulated. Cell phones are getting there.

I believe you, but how does that work? For example the federal government commonly buys mortgages. Since the federal government buys the mortgage, wouldn't it void out any state law around the mortgage?

Foreclosure is a common-law procedure, subject to the laws of the state that the mortgage was taken out in. When the government needs to foreclose, they file it the same way everyone else does.

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