Are You a Victim of Zombie Debt Buyers?

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Debt Buyers (HBO)
Debt buyers  are an unsupervised group that prey on millions of naive people.  According to this YouTube by John Oliver (please excuse some of his language) American households are more than $12 trillion dollars in debt, $436 billion are more than 90 days past due.  Debts can come from unexpected debts, such as medical bills.  Delinquent debts have been purchased over and over again by debt collectors.  Billion dollars in debts are sold again and again.  The largest debt buyer, Encore Capital Group, parent of Midland Funding, says that one in five Americans owes them money or has in the past.
The debt buyers buy only a spread sheet with names of the borrower.  That sheet includes borrower’s name, address, SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER, but no information to back up whether or not this is a valid date.
Debt buyers are harassing the borrower despite the fact that the debt was discharged in bankruptcy, or is outside the laws that prohibit collection of an old debt, hence “zombie debt buyers”.  This video has tapes of horrible phone calls from debt buyers that threaten to do things that are completely illegal.  Attorneys are involved and spending only seconds reviewing law suits before filing the suit hoping that the borrower will not answer and the debt buyer gets a default judgment.  Next step: garnishing wages.
The latest debt collector “fraud” has been to use false letters on a government letterhead intended to scare a borrower into paying a debt that is already paid, discharged in bankruptcy, beyond the statute of limitations, or not even their obligation.
Federal Trade Commission and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have tried to protect consumers.  Unfortunately, several states, including Arizona and Arkansas, have loosened laws that required a debt buyer to prove that this was a legitimate debt.
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