John Oliver buys and forgives $15m in debt

[Cerus]

Anyone who has debt has a legal obligation to pay it back, all this James Oliver did was let thousands of people off the hook who owed money. And the reason it's worth 60,000 is not because it's illegitimate it's because the amount of money required to litigate thousands of individuals for petty amounts of money like $200 is not worth the time, hence why most people probably already gave up collecting on the debt and why its worth so little.

This too. People are acting like he saved these people. All he did was let them off the hook for debts they willingly took out. Just because the statue of limitations ran out on lawsuits or the debts were so small they weren't worth suing for doesn't mean they weren't owed.

Pay your debts or don't take out loans you can't or won't pay. Pretty simple. Of course life can throw you a curveball like it did me. Either work on paying them off little by little or if they're too much, file bankruptcy and deal with the aftermath. But someone did give these people money and they didn't pay it back. That's no different then going into Walmart and walking out with a TV you didn't pay for. They're entitled to the money.

[Reeve]

This too. People are acting like he saved these people. All he did was let them off the hook for debts they willingly took out. Just because the statue of limitations ran out on lawsuits or the debts were so small they weren't worth suing for doesn't mean they weren't owed.

Pay your debts or don't take out loans you can't or won't pay. Pretty simple. Of course life can throw you a curveball like it did me. Either work on paying them off little by little or if they're too much, file bankruptcy and deal with the aftermath. But someone did give these people money and they didn't pay it back. That's no different then going into Walmart and walking out with a TV you didn't pay for. They're entitled to the money.

Yeah, that's the next bit of the radio piece I linked earlier:

And now you know the magic words. You can use them yourself. Though Jake said he is not sure that he thinks that's always such a good thing. He talked to another guy who had a lot of debt. This is an Indian immigrant who owned a steakhouse and owed like $300,000.

Jake Halpern
And he had used these magic words almost to the point where it was a scam. He owed all this money for the steakhouse that had gone bust, and he was just showing up in court and saying, show me the original signed contract. Show me the statements. And he was beating these debts left and right.

Ira Glass
Oh, wow.

Jake Halpern
Yeah. He was working it. Oh my God, there's this magic button and I can totally get off the hook for all this money that I owe. I'm just going to keep on hitting it, boom, boom, boom.

[Cerus]

You've never heard of This American Life? They're sort of the flagship program of NPR. And yeah, they showed one incident because that's how you tell a story. The lawyers involved in the incident see these cases get dropped when people show up and ask for evidence enough that it's a well known phenomenon, though. And while TAL didn't go into detail on the show, they do fact check their stories to make sure what they're saying is representative, and isn't just an isolated case.

Except it isn't representative of anything. My own experience and those of friends contradicts it 100%. There are millions of collection cases before the courts every year that go off without a hitch. Go to your local court house and observe the proceedings - it's all open court. Factor those in and their "representation" % takes a huge dive.

[Reeve]

Except it isn't representative of anything. My own experience and those of friends contradicts it 100%. There are millions of collection cases before the courts every year that go off without a hitch. Go to your local court house and obserbe the proceedings - it's all open court. Factor those in and their "representation" % takes a huge dive.

The experiences of you and a few friends is even less representative than a radio program, a TV show, and my ex-girlfriend. At least the radio program and the TV show probably looked into more than a few cases. And did you try to fight the debt collection? Did they show you something that was an actual original signed copy of the statements, or did they show you an "account summary" that looks official but isn't evidence at all?

[Cthulhu 2020]

Anyone who has debt has a legal obligation to pay it back, all this James Oliver did was let thousands of people off the hook who owed money. And the reason it's worth 60,000 is not because it's illegitimate it's because the amount of money required to litigate thousands of individuals for petty amounts of money like $200 is not worth the time, hence why most people probably already gave up collecting on the debt and why its worth so little. Debt does have a statute of limitations in some places though and if he did buy that debt hes a retard.

15 million dollars between 9,000 people is $1,666 average per person.

[Sunseeker]

Yeah, that's the next bit of the radio piece I linked earlier:

Still, here's the trick: any collection agency worth its salt that actually gives a shit about making you pay that money WILL HAVE THE DOCS. It's actually not that hard to get them either, provided they still exist. If the documents have been destroyed then the original debtee is a fucking idiot.

I do debt collection for a living, it's really not that hard to not be fucking tool about it. People and companies who choose to go about it like a bunch of morons deserve to be fucked.

The thing is, companies like Midland Credit Mgmt don't give a fuck. They own millions upon millions of accounts that they paid absolutely nothing for and collect an average of <1% of them. But hey, you just collected a million dollars on accounts you only paid 50k for! So they don't give a fuck. These companies aren't collecting on big home, boat and car loans. They're collecting on cell phone bills, unreturned modems, unpaid internet bills, all of those shitty $300 limit Capital One cards. The company doesn't give a shit, so their collectors don't give a shit. The agencies that are demonstrated in the video are little better than patent trolls trying to sue for ownership of the internet because they patented some vague "series of tubes" bullshit.

So for companies that actually do give a fuck, like mine, it's really pretty easy to take someone to court. Yeah, there can be long, drawn out court battles, but when someone owes $168k on a boat they still have and don't feel like paying for, it's fairly easy to produce the documents showing they owe it.

[spanishninja]

yes and no.
yes it was hbo's money, but
no hbo didnt give him the money to burn it, it was probably in the budged for the show.
so he used money ment for the show to buy and then forgive debt.
thats speculation on my end, but i think that would be the most realistic way it went.
BUT, i dont want to deminish his move. its great.
not only did he forgave the debt but also made people aware, and i think thats more important in the long run.
sadly many people will say "hes a comedian so all he says is irrelevant". yes he is a comedian, but he still reports facts. or at least i hope he does and doesnt just come up with his storys and instead just adds funny bits to serious news

do you really believe there are shows with $30 million extra available in the budget?

[Sunseeker]

do you really believe there are shows with $30 million extra available in the budget?

Why would he need an extra 30 million? Setting up the agency in Mississippi cost him $50. Buying the accounts cost him $60k. So all in all, he spent $60,050. He didn't "pay off" the 15 million dollars of accounts. He gave them to another agency that will erase them and then those accounts will no longer be owed.

[lockedout]

Yeah, but I'm sure it was part of his show's budget, which means to do this, they'd have had to sacrifice doing something else.

Probably a raid tier.

[apepi]

This too. People are acting like he saved these people. All he did was let them off the hook for debts they willingly took out. Just because the statue of limitations ran out on lawsuits or the debts were so small they weren't worth suing for doesn't mean they weren't owed.

Pay your debts or don't take out loans you can't or won't pay. Pretty simple. Of course life can throw you a curveball like it did me. Either work on paying them off little by little or if they're too much, file bankruptcy and deal with the aftermath. But someone did give these people money and they didn't pay it back. That's no different then going into Walmart and walking out with a TV you didn't pay for. They're entitled to the money.

These were all medical bills. Do you know how outrageous they are in the US? Some people don't have a choice.

[Reeve]

Still, here's the trick: any collection agency worth its salt that actually gives a shit about making you pay that money WILL HAVE THE DOCS. It's actually not that hard to get them either, provided they still exist. If the documents have been destroyed then the original debtee is a fucking idiot.

I do debt collection for a living, it's really not that hard to not be fucking tool about it. People and companies who choose to go about it like a bunch of morons deserve to be fucked.

The thing is, companies like Midland Credit Mgmt don't give a fuck. They own millions upon millions of accounts that they paid absolutely nothing for and collect an average of <1% of them. But hey, you just collected a million dollars on accounts you only paid 50k for! So they don't give a fuck. These companies aren't collecting on big home, boat and car loans. They're collecting on cell phone bills, unreturned modems, unpaid internet bills, all of those shitty $300 limit Capital One cards. The company doesn't give a shit, so their collectors don't give a shit. The agencies that are demonstrated in the video are little better than patent trolls trying to sue for ownership of the internet because they patented some vague "series of tubes" bullshit.

So for companies that actually do give a fuck, like mine, it's really pretty easy to take someone to court. Yeah, there can be long, drawn out court battles, but when someone owes $168k on a boat they still have and don't feel like paying for, it's fairly easy to produce the documents showing they owe it.

Right, that makes sense. I am in fact mostly talking about these relatively petty claims.

[xChurch]

Sure, but if that's the case, they can't actually do anything, and the individuals in question could sue the debtors for harassing them. That's harassment like any other sort of harassment.

In the segment, though Oliver mentioned that these companies often get their money by suing in court, getting a summary judgment when no one shows for the defense, and then garnishing the wages of the person in debt. If the person allegedly in debt showed up to the court case and asked to see the evidence, 99% of the time the case would be dropped, since the company has no actual evidence.

I was kind of surprised he didn't harp on that more so people would know exactly what to do in the event they experience the same. Companies are allowed to get away with so much based almost exclusively on people's ignorance and laziness (or perhaps fear in this case) and yet most of the time all it takes is the will to fight back to get them to fold like a house of cards. I remember back during the mortage crisis hearing that the best thing you could do when being forclosed was to simply sit tight and wait for them to provide actual evidence of their ownership which most of the time, they couldn't do.

[Skaiz]

yes and no.
yes it was hbo's money, but
no hbo didnt give him the money to burn it, it was probably in the budged for the show.
so he used money ment for the show to buy and then forgive debt.
thats speculation on my end, but i think that would be the most realistic way it went.
BUT, i dont want to deminish his move. its great.
not only did he forgave the debt but also made people aware, and i think thats more important in the long run.
sadly many people will say "hes a comedian so all he says is irrelevant". yes he is a comedian, but he still reports facts. or at least i hope he does and doesnt just come up with his storys and instead just adds funny bits to serious news

Hahahahaha. Oh sorry.... hahahaha