Should be a sticky. I totally agree. There is no such thing as 'moral obligation' in this dog eat dog US of A. You have to do what is best for you and your creditors be damned. Food and shelter should be your priority.
Originally posted by bcohen
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With all due respect, this is a third-tier junk debt buyer (JDB). This is not the original creditor! If the debt was still owned by the original creditor, then I could at least understand why you might feel a sense of moral obligation to pay something, as the original creditor obviously lost a lot of money when you defaulted on the debt. However, the moment that the original creditor sold the debt to the first JDB, your sense of moral obligation should have ended. Unlike an original creditor, which lends money in good faith, JDB's are speculators who buy defaulted debts--knowing that most of them will never be repaid--for pennies on the dollar. Each successive JDB pays less and less for the debt, because the probability that anything will ever be collected decreases as time passes. Any money you pay at this point WILL NOT go to the original creditor, because they have sold their right to collect the debt.
The point I am trying to make is that once a debt has been sold several times--or even one time, morality should not enter the equation. You did not have a contract with the JDB, and you did not cause the JDB to lose any money. If they chose to purchase your debt on a gamble that they could guilt you into paying, threaten you into paying, or sue you into paying, and that gamble ends up being a bad bet, that's the JDB's problem. They are counting on the fact that a certain percentage of people can be intimidated into paying hundreds--or even thousands--of dollars toward a debt which the JDB might have paid less than $10 for.
PLEASE do not let this so-called "moral obligation"--which does NOT exist anyways--distract you from the issue at hand, which is that a company with whom you have no prior business relationship is trying to collect a debt which they may or may not even be legally entitled to collect. Additionally, even if the company is able to prove that they own the debt--which will ONLY happen if you send a dispute letter such as the one I posted above--then you should still probably not pay anything. I fail to see how you gain anything by paying toward this debt ever again, because in 3 more years, the debt will "fall off" of your credit reports as long as you do nothing to re-age it, such as making payments or signing a new promissory note, etc.
The point I am trying to make is that once a debt has been sold several times--or even one time, morality should not enter the equation. You did not have a contract with the JDB, and you did not cause the JDB to lose any money. If they chose to purchase your debt on a gamble that they could guilt you into paying, threaten you into paying, or sue you into paying, and that gamble ends up being a bad bet, that's the JDB's problem. They are counting on the fact that a certain percentage of people can be intimidated into paying hundreds--or even thousands--of dollars toward a debt which the JDB might have paid less than $10 for.
PLEASE do not let this so-called "moral obligation"--which does NOT exist anyways--distract you from the issue at hand, which is that a company with whom you have no prior business relationship is trying to collect a debt which they may or may not even be legally entitled to collect. Additionally, even if the company is able to prove that they own the debt--which will ONLY happen if you send a dispute letter such as the one I posted above--then you should still probably not pay anything. I fail to see how you gain anything by paying toward this debt ever again, because in 3 more years, the debt will "fall off" of your credit reports as long as you do nothing to re-age it, such as making payments or signing a new promissory note, etc.
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