Tag Archives: debt

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Debt Collectors Target Retired, Elderly

From NBC:

Faced with a fixed income and constantly rising cost of living, many seniors now spend their “golden years” juggling bills and fending off debt collectors.

“If they get a phone call at 10 o’clock at night and the caller is harassing them for a debt, it can be very scary,” said Amy Nofziger with the AARP Foundation. “We know that it causes a lot of stress for seniors because some of these debt collectors can use foul language and other forms of harassment to try to collect the debt.”

Senior citizens are the perfect targets for debt collectors. Younger people screen their calls, and won’t hesitate to hang up salesmen or debt collectors. Seniors have that sense of old-fashioned manners that makes it, well–rude to do that. Sadly, debt collectors take advantage of this. Anything you say to a debt collector can and will be used against you.

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Couple Wins $1 Million from Bank in Suit over Repeated Debt Collection Calls

From ABC News:

Bank of America is being forced to hand over more than $1 million to a Florida couple after the bank flooded them with hundreds of loan collection calls for years – the latest example of alleged behavior that has cost the bank tens of millions.

In a complaint filed in July, attorneys for Nelson and Joyce Coniglio said that the couple had been on the receiving end of “patterns of outrageous, abusive and harassing conduct” by a subsidiary of Bank of America that included 700 calls in four years, after the bank said the couple fell behind on mortgage loan payments in 2009. The Coniglios also received “threatening collection letters asserting false and misleading information,” the complaint said.

The couple sent multiple letters from legal representation asking the bank to stop, but the calls — sometimes up to five a day — continued. The complaint describes automated calls leaving repeated pre-recorded messages.

2009 seems to have been a high-water point in this kind of debt collection. That was when I was going through my own credit card debt mess, and lots of others who were in the struggle at that time were victims of the “let’s just call them a million times and see if they’ll pay!” routine.

And hey, let’s be honest–$1 million is a pretty nice payday. This is why you document everything. Log every call. Record every call (if it is legal to do so). Take notes.

Document everything.

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18% of Americans Plan to Be in Debt Forever

From CNBC:

Survey respondents who expect to pay off their debts anticipate doing so at an average age of 53. But in addition to the 18 percent who expect to owe money forever, another 25 percent expect to be in debt until at least age 61.

Older respondents are more likely to believe their debt will be with them forever. Some 31 percent of those over age 65 expect to be lifelong debtors, compared to 22 percent of those aged 50 to 64 and just 6 percent of millennials aged 18 to 29.

This is not normal. Throughout the history of Western Civilization, debt was viewed as something unusual, only to be taken on in certain cases. If you are starting a business or buying an asset that will pay off the debt for you, that is a good use of debt. If you are financing the purchase of a house over 15-30 years, that is OK debt–assuming you have saved up a large down payment and can comfortably afford the payments. If you are using debt for routine purchases (and not paying off the credit cards in full every month), or taking out a massive loan for a worthless degree, that is bad debt.

The mindset that expects to be in debt for the rest of one’s natural life is not healthy. This is what we call debt servitude.

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35% of Americans Face Debt Collectors

From AP:

The study found that 35.1 percent of people with credit records had been reported to collections for debt that averaged $5,178, based on September 2013 records. The study points to a disturbing trend: The share of Americans in collections has remained relatively constant, even as the country as a whole has whittled down the size of its credit card debt since the official end of the Great Recession in the middle of 2009.

This study is a few months old, but I’m posting it to remind you of something very important in credit repair: You are not alone! Over a third of the people you see walking down the street are currently facing debt collectors.

When you’re struggling with debt and being hounded by debt collectors, it’s easy to make up that it is a unique problem you alone are facing; but it’s not. Take a little bit of encouragement from the fact that others are struggling too, and don’t believe everyone who tells you his life is perfect.