That can’t cry over you. Word by Jabari Cards Available Now!
Debt is becoming an ugly, ugly, ugly word. It has opened the door for some very nasty people to take advantage of people at their lowest. Let’s take a poll.
How many people do you think go into debt planning NOT to pay their bills?
Logically, people go into debt because they want to live better, they want more of what they see and a lot of the time, cannot afford, but really do need. Such as medical expenses, not even major ones. But everyday things, like dental emergencies, eyeglasses, appendix removal, car repairs. Utility company, cable company, phone company prices exceed your salary. Voila! You’re in debt!
How do you avoid debt? Get a better job with a higher paying salary. Easier said than done for most people. Go to college. We’ll come back to that one. Sell drugs. Prostitute. Those are options for the not so faint of heart. No one in debt plans on not being able to pay their bills anymore than they plan on not being on this planet the next day. They are in debt primarily because of predators.
Credit is BIG BUSINESS. It’s everywhere you look. Banks, PayDay Loans … and Credit Cards are being offered by everyone from stores, gas stations, schools .. you name it and they probably offer credit cards.
We are made to believe if you get credit, it will make your life better. Your credit score will go up. You will have access to just about anything you need and want. Yet, there is all that small print. What’s that all about?
It’s about chain yanking. Loop holes you will eventually have to jump through. Surprise tactics and strategies that will put a strangle hold on your finances. Think foreclosure crisis.
And then the devil invented Collections. The collections industry is just a legitimate form of loan sharking. Few people realize that most collection agencies are law offices. Yeah. Attorneys. Ambulance chasing didn’t exactly dry up. They just found a new prey. And it’s a racket!
These collection firms often hire ex-cons as field workers (and sometimes, ex-cops, especially the corrupt ones). They get them through probation officers. These “ex-con field workers” are permitted to break the law, specifically, the Fair Debt Collections Act, by violating your rights, harass you, stalk you, slander you, terrorize you, … and obtain as much valuable personal information about you as possible. (Fringe benefits)
They can do whatever they want with that personal information, like use it to re-establish their own personal identity. Yeah. Since attorney’s have gotten into the collections business, identity theft is at an all time high. These field workers who like to refer to themselves as “Operatives” can run up all kinds of debts in your name and you are responsible for it. And no one can ever trace these people to the law firms that employ them. They are already criminals. They work on commission, paid under the table, and those fringe benefits.
Credit is Big Business because of the added incentive …the interest rates. That becomes the money maker. There is even more of an incentive if you default on your debt. It becomes a write off for tax purposes. Huge money maker! At the taxpayer’s expense!
It is in their best interest that you will default on your debt.
Now, back to student loans. One of the biggest rackets around. Here’s a nightmare story for you:
I returned to school in my early 30’s, after losing my long time job. I thought I would be a teacher. The word — was that teacher’s were needed. It was a noble profession that I could do well into my retirement years. And the pay was far and above my previous office support employment. I couldn’t lose, right?
I bought into the dream. Although I understood that nothing is guaranteed, I jumped in, made the sacrifices, worked very hard. A higher education is promoted as the ticket to better employment, better salaries, better life. I now know that is false advertisement.
There are only so many people who will benefit from a college degree. It’s like they are the chosen ones. The rest of us are just in it to support the institutions, unbeknownst to us. There are many PhD and MBA recipients bagging groceries at your local supermarket.
I am not the only person disappointed by that fact. Doctors and lawyers are prime examples of that disappointment. They became the ultimate professional’s believing that life would be golden. It wasn’t.
They glutted the market because of the promise. Especially lawyers. Finding and securing a high paying, prestigious position as a doctor or lawyer turned out to be just as difficult, and competitive, as becoming a supermodel.
It’s critical when you think they come out of law school and medical school owing $100’s of thousands of dollars. This explains a lot of corruption, especially relating to lawyers. Desparate times calls for desparate actions.
When I finished all of my requirements, the school, my university, suddenly lost my last semester of grades and informed me that I would have to repeat the courses. However, I was informed that I no longer qualified for student loans and that I would have to re-apply for admissions, only they were no longer accepting new applications. Hmmm.
I was not alone. There were approximately 100 students standing around in the admin building being forced to jump through these fantasy loops.
The catch here, is that all of the other students were freshmen, low-income minority students from ghetto communities across town. They had been lured to sign on the dotted line for loans, which the bulk of the money went primarily to the school.
And now, they were being systematically “forced out”. It’s called “sifting”. The Carter Administration caught many schools committing this offense and had to forgive large sums of money – at taxpayer’s expense.
The game is played like this: The kids sign for government loans, the school receives 90% of the money, the school fills an affirmative action “quota” for the term, and when the students are “sifted out” through this scam and “drop out”, they have no choice but to default on their loans.
Q: What kind of legal employment can an 18 – 22 year old low-income, minority dropout find that will pay for today’s living expenses and loan debts?
Collection Agency’s (mostly law firms) are then contracted by the Department of Education. They are given government (taxpayer’s) money to buy off these debts for low costs, and then they can pursue the loans incurring huge commission fees.
But you see, the school has secured thousands of dollars for admissions and other fees, which they are not accountable for. The dream, the promise, was to include the less fortunate, to give them a leg up, to level the playing fields. We all bought into it.
The reality was for colleges and universities to find a “scapegoat” to sign on the dotted line for those loans. After they default, collection law firms were enlisted to snatch as much money as they could — (Desperate times call for desperate actions, remember?) to make it look like it was all serious business, and they were given carte blanche by our government to do this, by any means necessary, for as long as necessary — for the life of the individual in many cases. Because these were people who would most likely be unable to ever pay off those loans. They could collect every penny these poor unfortunate souls ever made — forever!
And the kicker, is that the rest of society is encouraged to look at the defaulted borrower as mince meat to be devoured. As if they chose to borrow money they had no means of repaying, only to default on it on purpose! As though they were never serious about attending school — to achieve the dream, but, instead just to steal money from taxpayers. Most of these unsuspecting souls have no idea they are being scammed. Victimized. They have no background that would prepare them how to fight this battle.
And yes, there are many success stories. Determined young men and women who for whatever reason, know how to play the game, and accomplish their goals. But for those large numbers of victims (preyed upon) that do not know how, it adds up to a lot of taxpayer money that is misused and abused by a corrupt system.
If the system had been fair, and just, there is no telling what those young victims could have contributed to society. Or what I may have contributed to some student’s life. I’m great with kids.
Q: If the majority of student loan borrowers are not qualified for regular bank loans without collateral, how is it that they were able to qualify for student loans without collateral, credit, and no means to repay those loans — with only the promise of a degree and better career opportunities?
That’s the hype. The program is a farce.
No one ever really says, “there are no guarantees”. It’s never even implied, that when, or if you obtain your degree, there most probably will not be better opportunities available.
They never offer small business loans that easily. Which would make more sense. At least, with an SBA loan, there is the possibility of success and an income.
This scam unfolded completely after I realized I would not receive my degree. I applied and received a six month deferment to pay my loans. Two months later, not six, my deferment was cancelled and I was demanded to pay the loans in full.
I owed a total of $10,000 (4% rate) for three years of study. I had worked three jobs and reduced my living expenses to almost nothing. I was unemployed. Obviously, I could not afford to pay a balance of $10,000 or the 4 percent interest on that balance.
Plus, Dept. Ed policy promised affordable payment plan options. I was denied those options.
My loans went into default immediately. $26,000 was added to the principal, and another $23,000 added for commission fees. A grand total of $59,000 was being demanded for payment in full.
I was hounded unmercifully. Telephone calls all day and throughout the night. My credit was destroyed. It was difficult obtaining a place to live. And some jobs would not consider me because of my credit. The collections reported over 10 pages of defaulted student loans, which was false. Some of the loans dated back to 1964, when I was a little kid. It gets worse.
People (ex-con and ex-cop fieldworkers) impersonating federal agents were going to my neighbors, local stores, my chuch, my banks, my doctor, saying that I was under investigation by the government for fraud, in order to get information about me and my finances. People believed them! I was humiliated and embarassed — and angry.
I found an entry level administrative job eight months after leaving school and wrote and called repeatedly, attempting to get a payment plan, based on my income, but was refused.
Unfortunately, a few years later, I acquired a chronic illness and was placed on disability. These collection agents pretended to be IRS Treasury Agents and offset $5000 of my disability. They never obtained a legal court order for this offset, but used blatantly fake Treasury stationary.
The $5000 disappeared into a black hole never to be seen again. None of it was applied to my loans or the interest fees. I still owed $59.000.
Eventually, I wrote enough letters to government officials and they were able to stop the offset. But not the harassment. I never obtained my degree, although I completed all my requirements. Obviously, I never became a teacher. My loan status made it impossible to afford school without assistance, so I have never been able to attend another school to repeat those classes (all A’s and B’s by the way).
The Moral of this story?
I learned a lot anyway. Mostly about myself and about the system of things. Despite the corruption, going to college was worth it. I understand so much more about being alert and observant. About predators. About reading the small print. About fighting and standing up. About never giving up or giving in. About a corrupt, broken system that needs to be changed, and how it is hurting everyone in our nation.
Corruption is just the cowards way out, preying upon vulnerable people to make a living or rather a killing, instead of looking for meaningful ways to improve society.
My disability did not cause me to sit at home and collect a check. Or, to pursue criminal tactics. Or to cheat the government or other people. It allowed me an opportunity to establish my own business, which would have been more difficult if I had been working for someone else. It certainly hasn’t been easy, and the business is not close to what I hope it will be.
But the key is to find something that you love and care about, that will be of use to others, and find a way to make it happen.
More importantly, debt is just a four letter word that small, petty, greedy people are making into a bad word. All that should ever be done is take a person to court or arbitration, and work out an affordable plan. If they still do not pay, go back into court and see why. The court fees are under $100. Which explains the corruption. Why pay $100 to resolve a problem when so much more can be stolen? After all, no one is watching. Taxpayer’s are too busy and too easily misled.
The bottom line is there is generally a logical, human reason a person is not paying their debt. Therefore, there should always be a logical, human way to resolve the debt. Ultimately, there are options like hardship or forgiveness of debt.
The current collections and foreclosure crisis shows that debtor’s prison was more civil.
August 15th, 2008 at 2:41 am
I recently came accross your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I dont know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog.
Tim Ramsey
August 15th, 2008 at 3:01 am
Thank you Tim…hope you continue. And please feel free to spread the word.