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Comment by alexb_ | Hacker News Reader

I would be interested if they at least said "Yeah, we're shitbags, but that's just how it is, and someone's gotta collect delinquent debt". What I'm not okay with is putting in shit like this:

> The Debt Buying and Debt Collection industries can be a very rewarding career if it's right for you. It is also a risky business to be in and has a somewhat negative connotation among some groups because of a few people/companies that have exploited the industries for personal gain or because of a general lack of understanding of the laws or regulations in place for consumer protection. Be mindful of who you deal with and always practice honest, legal and ethical business to help prevent any further negative stereotypes from being cast over this industry.

It's not a negative stereotype, and it's not because of a "few people". It's the facts. Don't pretend like you're doing something noble here.

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I certainly wouldn't call it noble, but neither are 95% of other professions.

If you say you'll pay a debt, you should pay it. A necessary and IMO objectively good consequence of that is if you try to shirk that responsibility, someone somewhere is going to try to find you and try to collect. That doesn't by definition make anyone (including the person with delinquent debt) a bad person.

I would agree with you, except that people who sell debt at these crazy low rates are doing so because the person with delinquent debt is so destitute they've given up trying to collect. They sell to people who will go to every single length allowed by the law to harass people with absolutely nothing to their name until they squeeze the last bit of water from the stone of poverty.

This debt doesn't come from people like you and me. They come from people who literally don't understand what debt is and have been fooled into a life of poverty. That's who's being targeted here.

Removing the ability to effectively service non-performing debt would simply drive up the cost of borrowing for people that need it. Debt collectors are a necessary evil...

> This debt doesn't come from people like you and me. They come from people who literally don't understand what debt is and have been fooled into a life of poverty. That's who's being targeted here.

Exactly - the problem isn't debt collectors, its predatory lending.

Recourse debt and its consequences have been a disaster.

We can do better but there’s not much will.

Is there anything inherently shitbag about collecting debts? As long as you’re professional, follow the regulations and treat the debtor fairly, I’m not sure what the problem is. The debtor presumably agreed to take on the debt and still owes the money until either it’s discharged or they’ve paid what they owe.

There are obviously a load of shitbags in the debt collection industry, but the only way to change that is for non-shitbags to get into the industry and replace them.

> non-shitbags to get into the industry and replace them

I don't think this really works in this case. Much of the debt being purchased by the shitbags is unlikely to be affordable by the debtor and the collector usually ends up unsympathetically ignoring the financial situation of the debtor to shotgun-harass (contact 20 people and hope 2 answer) them in an effort to make a profit. The non-shitbags realize that this is the only winning strategy and choose to do something else.

>Is there anything inherently shitbag about collecting debts?

What's practically involved in collecting debt? I don't actually know.

Lots of sending out letters and making phone calls. I spent a lot of time and energy trying to automate the process but the industry refuses to modernize.

>Lots of sending out letters and making phone calls.

Can you elaborate? Who are these letters to? What do they contain? What happens if someone doesn't pay after you serve notice? What's the whole process like?

If no letter has been sent about the debt in 2 or 3 years, the owner of the debt loses the right to collect the debt.

(I can’t remember exact duration- probably depends on jurisdiction).

A debt collector who exclusively purchases corporate debt to collect isn't the person who's calling my parents to harass them about a surprise medical bill. There may indeed be "a few people" relative to the industry as a whole who are doing the "shitbag" thing.

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