My Kind of Debt Buyer: The Rolling Jubilee.
I got no love for (most) debt buyers. Creditors sell billions of dollars of debt to opportunistic “investors” for pennies on the dollar (an average of about 4 cents). The debt buyers then attempt to collect on the debts, often using aggressive debt collection tactics and without first verifying the accuracy of the debt. Consumers often dispute the amount of the debt, or that they owe the debt at all, each year disputing more than a million dollars in debt that debt buyers attempted to collect.
But not all debt buyers are profiting from the misery of others. The Rolling Jubilee http://rollingjubilee.org/ (an offshoot of the Occupy Movement and a project of Strike Debt) has acquired and is cancelling $14.7 million dollars in debt owed by 2,693 people across 45 states and Puerto Rico. The debt is mainly unpaid medical bills—the cancellation of which is welcome news for people who are struggling.
How to Protect Yourself from Debt Collectors
Debt collectors are notoriously aggressive. But federal consumer financial protection laws prohibit unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices and apply to debt collectors as well as creditors and lots of states also have laws limiting debt collection practices.
First, don’t assume that everything (anything?) a debt collector says is true.
Next, as soon as possible, communicate with the debt collector in writing. Send one or more actual paper letters by mail to the debt collector. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has done the work for us. Here are its useful sample letters for responding to a debt collector:
- I do not owe this debt.
- I need more information about this debt.
- I want the debt collector to stop contacting me.
- I want the debt collector to only contact me through my lawyer.
- I want to specify how the debt collector can contact me.
Keep copies of any letters you send.
Request formal verification of the debt in writing. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), creditors selling debt do not typically pass along key information to debt buyers, such as whether the consumer previously disputed the debt or whether collectors previously verified the debt. Most contracts between creditors and debt buyers state that the creditors do not warrant that the information they provided was accurate. http://www.ftc.gov/os/2013/01/debtbuyingreport.pdf
Debt collectors are required to tell you how you can seek verification of the debt or dispute the debt. If you dispute a debt (or part of a debt) in writing within 30 days of when you receive the required information from the debt collector, the debt collector cannot call or contact you until after your dispute has been investigated and the debt collector has provided the verification of the debt in writing to you.
- If you feel that you are being treated unfairly by a debt collector, submit a complaint about the problems to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: http://www.consumerfinance.gov/complaint/.
- Learn more about the laws in your state from your state attorney general’s office.
- Read Strike Debt’s position on student loans: http://strikedebt.org/strike-student-debt/.
- Read The Guardian’s recent article about the Rolling Jubilee: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/12/occupy-wall-street-activists-15m-personal-debt
