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Debtor's Hell: Preying on Red-Ink America
July 30, 2006 (Michael Rezendes, Beth Healy, Francie Latour, Heather Allen, and editor Walter V. Robinson - Boston Globe)
At nearly every stage, the Globe found, the debt collection system in the state is stacked against the average consumer:
* Many small-claims courts have effectively become accomplices of collection firms, routinely giving them the upper hand in court cases while casually disregarding the rights and dignity of ordinary citizens.
* Collectors almost always win the lawsuits they file, without being asked for evidence that the debts they are chasing are actually owed.
* Debtors frequently receive no notice of the lawsuits against them because debt collectors provide courts with outdated addresses for the people they are suing.
* The disabled, the elderly, and the working poor are often talked into repaying their debts from their monthly government checks, which by law are protected from legal judgments.
* And an obscure posse of law enforcement agents - constables and deputy sheriffs - operate freely as the blunt instrument of collection firms, with neither their steep fees nor their sometimes heavy-handed tactics regulated.
It is, in short, a system made safe - and very profitable - for Massachusetts collectors like such as Commonwealth and Norfolk, and for others like them across the country.
"The creditors are all repeat players. They know exactly how the game works,'' said Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard Law School professor who studies consumer debt. ''We're watching a fight between two players, one a skilled repeat gladiator, and one who's thrown into the ring for the first time and gets clubbed over the head before they even get a sense of what the rules are.''
AntiSpin: No AntiSpin required on this four part series. This is an important and well done investigation into the debt situation that so many Americans find themselves today, how they got there and the terrible issues they are dealing with.
iTulip.com has been running this survey and the survey answers on the consumer side of the Greenspan Credit Bubble since 1999 to help educate visitors on the extent of the problem and we hope prevent a some from falling into the debt trap.
Reading the excellent Boston Globe series that carefully documents the way masses of citizens are systematically abused by credit agencies, collection agencies, the court system, and law enforcement will make your blood boil. But rather than just get mad, we at iTulip.com have an idea about how to help address the problem. Later this week, we will present this idea and allow iTulip.com members and visitors -- you -- an opportunity to help if you want to be part of the solution to the Red-Ink America problem and get help if you are one of its victims.
July 30, 2006 (Michael Rezendes, Beth Healy, Francie Latour, Heather Allen, and editor Walter V. Robinson - Boston Globe)
At nearly every stage, the Globe found, the debt collection system in the state is stacked against the average consumer:
* Many small-claims courts have effectively become accomplices of collection firms, routinely giving them the upper hand in court cases while casually disregarding the rights and dignity of ordinary citizens.
* Collectors almost always win the lawsuits they file, without being asked for evidence that the debts they are chasing are actually owed.
* Debtors frequently receive no notice of the lawsuits against them because debt collectors provide courts with outdated addresses for the people they are suing.
* The disabled, the elderly, and the working poor are often talked into repaying their debts from their monthly government checks, which by law are protected from legal judgments.
* And an obscure posse of law enforcement agents - constables and deputy sheriffs - operate freely as the blunt instrument of collection firms, with neither their steep fees nor their sometimes heavy-handed tactics regulated.
It is, in short, a system made safe - and very profitable - for Massachusetts collectors like such as Commonwealth and Norfolk, and for others like them across the country.
"The creditors are all repeat players. They know exactly how the game works,'' said Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard Law School professor who studies consumer debt. ''We're watching a fight between two players, one a skilled repeat gladiator, and one who's thrown into the ring for the first time and gets clubbed over the head before they even get a sense of what the rules are.''
AntiSpin: No AntiSpin required on this four part series. This is an important and well done investigation into the debt situation that so many Americans find themselves today, how they got there and the terrible issues they are dealing with.
iTulip.com has been running this survey and the survey answers on the consumer side of the Greenspan Credit Bubble since 1999 to help educate visitors on the extent of the problem and we hope prevent a some from falling into the debt trap.
Reading the excellent Boston Globe series that carefully documents the way masses of citizens are systematically abused by credit agencies, collection agencies, the court system, and law enforcement will make your blood boil. But rather than just get mad, we at iTulip.com have an idea about how to help address the problem. Later this week, we will present this idea and allow iTulip.com members and visitors -- you -- an opportunity to help if you want to be part of the solution to the Red-Ink America problem and get help if you are one of its victims.
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