www.CostaRicaTicas.com

Before you click away, consider this: Nearly everybody here knows somebody who's been harassed over an old debt, the collection time for which may have expired or been erased. The bad-paper guys don't care, if they can still get you to pay. You may not even be paying the right guys. Here's a NYTimes piece on this underbelly: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014 ... ector.html
Extracted from that is a registry of bad paper so you can see if there's old stuff out there and who really has the right to collect, if anybody: http://www.globaldebtregistry.com/ << these folks may turn out to be distressed consumer's best friend.

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"A man accustomed to hear only the echo of his own sentiments, soon bars all the common avenues of delight, and has no part in the general gratification of mankind"--Dr. Johnson
"Amen, brother"-ED

Now THIS is what I call "smack talk and FUN stuff!"

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Why settle for just one woman when you can enjoy them all?

It may not be fun to learn about a noxious issue and how bad it is; it is fun to learn about remedies in the works and how you can find out about how to fight back. Back to you, Chet.

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"A man accustomed to hear only the echo of his own sentiments, soon bars all the common avenues of delight, and has no part in the general gratification of mankind"--Dr. Johnson
"Amen, brother"-ED

In the economic crash of 2007, I lost nearly my entire "estate", my excellent big paycheck job, my stock shares of my company (Lehman Brothers), my equity in my investment properties, basically everything, that's when I accepted an offer to move to Costa Rica and run an internet gambling site for $1800 per month. If I was no longer going to be prosperous in the USA, I decided I was going to be happy, and have some fun and excitement and poontang in Costa Rica.

A few days before I was to leave, a credit card bill collector called and was harassing me. I explained why he's not going to get paid like this ;

"I'm moving to a third world country that is so poor they don't even have addresses or a post office, so you won't be able to find me, plus my paycheck is going to be apx 15% of what I'm used to and I'll be paid in colones, a currency I doubt you ever heard of. Put a lien on any of my properties ? Go ahead, they're all underwater. Garnish wages ? What wages ??? Confiscate my tax refund ??? What tax refund ? I pay taxes quarterly and I'm currently even Steven with the IRS. Affect my credit ? My credit score has already fallen from 700+ to high 400's, how much worse can it get ??? Sorry, pal, I know you get paid a commission on what you collect, but it ain't happening here so you might as well give it up, by the way, in 3 days this phone will be disconnected and I'll be on a jet plane headed to San Jose...

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Don't try to understand 'em, just rope 'em down and brand 'em...

Good personal reminiscence from Bro Netgems. As for me I still get phone calls about debts from before my discharge of bankruptcy. These were all erased in that BK, but as this article points out, these unscroupulous bottom-feeders don't care, if they can brow-beat or scare you into paying them. This was meant as an informative Thread for anybody past, present or future who gets caught up in these legal (though just barely) scams. My ego doesn't enter into it.
The best advice I got from this was--don't engage with these sleazebags at all. If they have legal standing to collect a debt, make them take you to court. You'll doubtless get a sympathetic hearing and probably get erasure with prejudice, meaning nobody can do that thing with that paper again, lest that collector face punishment.

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"A man accustomed to hear only the echo of his own sentiments, soon bars all the common avenues of delight, and has no part in the general gratification of mankind"--Dr. Johnson
"Amen, brother"-ED

Perhaps I am missing something here, but if you make a purchase or use a service aren't you obligated to pay the bill?

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The most dangerous adversaries are the ones that come with a smile instead of a sword

You are LEGALLY obligated to pay what you owe UNLESS a bankruptcy judge excuses you from paying it.

It is an unfortunate reality that, sometimes, legal obligations have nothing to do with moral obligations.

The OP made the comment "the collection time for which may have expired or been erased. The bad-paper guys don't care, if they can still get you to pay."

Why would it matter if the collection time had expired or if the debt had been written off? What ever happened to being honest and keeping your word?

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The most dangerous adversaries are the ones that come with a smile instead of a sword

Moral obligations have little or no standing in business transactions, much less BK (I was not asked 1 question on morality at my hearing or if I had the means to pay off the debt in the future). That doesn't mean a consumer has a right to run up bills they know they can't or won't pay but it does mean in light of changed circumstances, you can shed debt and not look back. The numbers of BK cases soared specially here in Florida once folks realized this. When did this discussion turn into a morality treatise, a "blame the victim" exposition? I merely presented some info and opinions on the biz side of unseemly transactions--can we discuss that further? Should the many consumers have to pay for the sins of the few? BTW as this article was careful to say, in many, many cases, a consumer has no idea who they actually owe the debt to and it's the Devil's own work to find out. What do you do then even if you wish to sit high atop the moral high ground? Sheesh.

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"A man accustomed to hear only the echo of his own sentiments, soon bars all the common avenues of delight, and has no part in the general gratification of mankind"--Dr. Johnson
"Amen, brother"-ED

JazzBo you and I were obviously raised very differently.

Jazz said "Moral obligations have little or no standing in business transactions, much less BK." Maybe in the Liberal Socialist utopia that you live in. Anyone who does business with me or my company gets paid. My word is better than any written contract.

Jazz said "When did this discussion turn into a morality treatise, a "blame the victim" exposition?" Are you actually insinuating that the person who never paid the debt is the victim here? What about the person providing the goods or services who never got paid. Do they not have bills or a family to feed?

Jazz said "in many, many cases, a consumer has no idea who they actually owe the debt to and it's the Devil's own work to find out." Are you actually suggesting that most people don't repay debts because they have no idea where to repay the money? Are you actually serious about this or simply delusional?

What we have here is a textbook example of 2 very different worlds. Jazz comes from a world of civil service and not knowing what it is like to sign the front of a paycheck. Defaulting on your debts is perfectly acceptable because you are only screwing the rich business owner who has too much money anyway. Besides, the rich businessman made his money unethically off the back of the poor working man.

I came from the world of starting my own construction company and basically living in poverty the first few years until I got established. I know first hand what it is like to have people like Jazz owing you money, using loopholes to justify their actions.

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The most dangerous adversaries are the ones that come with a smile instead of a sword

When it comes to personal finance, the US is messed up. We allow people to get credit cards with no verifiable income or assets, and after they max out their cards, they can just file for bankruptcy and all debt is forgiven. Nice system. 2 years down the road, they get new credit cards, and they are right back in the same mess they were before. Yes, I personally know 2 people who are neck deep in debt again less than 3 years later; they got new credit cards within 6 months after bankruptcy. These banks never learn. Well they know that the government will allow them to write off the losses so why not, right?

I'm with Devo on the fact that some people don't believe that they should have to pay back their debt. The fact that creditors are making these "deals" for half (or less) of what's owed is ridiculous. They end up writing off the rest and the gov't doesn't get that tax revenue, so in the end, we tax payers end up subsidizing the shopping sprees of deadbeats. I'm paying about 43% phucking taxes right now to support these phucking deadbeats. Each time I see somebody paying in food stamps who is not clearly handicapped or disabled, I want to bonk them over the head and tell them to get a job.

Ok, now you got me started on this... We have welfare programs in this country with absolutely no oversight or even verification for the most part. In other words, the majority of people who receive welfare (welfare is basically a program to allow lazy people from having to work) should not be receiving it. There are so many better causes that this money can go towards, but that will never happen because our government is weak and spineless; and even if somebody were to try and fix things, the other party wouldn't let him.

IMO, the debt collectors should be coming to people's houses, not just calling. People should be responsible for repaying their debt. Bankruptcy should be reserved for true bad luck or swindled cases, not deadbeats. In other countries, I believe that if you don't pay back debt, you can go to prison. I would love to see that here. This country is slowly going down in flames economically; eventually we'll hit rock bottom and start over.

I agree people should be responsible for their debt. But rather than dealing with the debt collector, try contact the original company you have the debt from and try to work out some sort of payment plan with them. I would rather give them the money than those 3rd party scumbags.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Often the "original company" will sell an old debt to a debt-collection company - - - - in moneyland terms, they sell their receivables, sometimes for pennies on a dollar.

In that case, the "original company" no longer has any right to receive the money.

With that kind of selling and re-selling, it can be difficult to know who to pay if a lot of time has elapsed.

It's cleaner to quickly pay what you owe. But sometimes honorable people are unable to do that - - - through no fault of their own.

That is exactly what that article said and what I tried to emphasize. It's not about the original debt, it's what happens to it. Imagine this: you sign up for a gym contract, hidden in the contract terms is a monthly direct payment to them. It's not much so it's not noticed. then you change banks, change jobs, change states, quit going to the gym. That monthly payment is no longer made but builds up as a debt and eventually a bad debt. This debt gets sold for pennies on the dollar and may be eventually, because of statute of limitations, become legally uncollectible. But it's still "paper" and somebody can still make money , some money at a profit, from trying to force you to pay it. Where does morality enter this equation? And, no, this is not uncommon.Those moralizers previously commenting wanna give this a severe re-think?

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"A man accustomed to hear only the echo of his own sentiments, soon bars all the common avenues of delight, and has no part in the general gratification of mankind"--Dr. Johnson
"Amen, brother"-ED

This is a reply to Bro Orange's rant about the ability of post-BK folks ability to resume a normal credit life: "...We allow people to get credit cards with no verifiable income or assets, they got new credit cards within 6 months after bankruptcy. These banks never learn...." Who's "we"? If anything, this being the land of the free, we "allow" people to apply for credit cards; it's up to the banks and VISA/Mastercard to actually grant them. And I'm here to tell you, having gone through the process and even with a guaranteed income stream of $40K/year, it was tough as nails to get even a pre-paid CC. The banks do learn--that someone going BK can't do it for at least another 7 years and are thus on the hook for all debts. You're in the finance management arena and you didn't know this? I'm astonished and disbelieving.

This is a reply to Bro Orange's rant about human welfare: The term "welfare" has been hijacked by the Right Wing to demonize and stereotype folks they'd like you to think are bums, unworthy of respectful consideration. Come down to North Ft. Myers FL to see what a lie that is (and this, before you go there to the unsubtle race thing, is a majority Caucasian area). But let's get down to the nitty-grit of what "welfare" really is, and there you find that for every $1 that a human being receives, corporate interests have received $2 (this is a generous-to-corps.-interest calculation): http://thinkbynumbers.org/government-sp ... tatistics/) and the humans spend it locally; the corps squirrel it away in some Cayman's trust, never again to see the light of day.
I do not wish to know the mind-set of mean-spirited folks who are blinded by the light, the harsh beam of those paid to push a pro-corporate, anti-human agenda.

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"A man accustomed to hear only the echo of his own sentiments, soon bars all the common avenues of delight, and has no part in the general gratification of mankind"--Dr. Johnson
"Amen, brother"-ED