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$12 Billion In Private Student Loan Debt May Be Wiped Away By Missing Paperwork (nytimes.com)

New submitter cdreimer shares a report from The New York Times (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternate source): Tens of thousands of people who took out private loans to pay for college but have not been able to keep up payments may get their debts wiped away because critical paperwork is missing. The troubled loans, which total at least $5 billion, are at the center of a protracted legal dispute between the student borrowers and a group of creditors who have aggressively pursued them in court after they fell behind on payments. Judges have already dismissed dozens of lawsuits against former students, essentially wiping out their debt, because documents proving who owns the loans are missing. A review of court records by The New York Times shows that many other collection cases are deeply flawed, with incomplete ownership records and mass-produced documentation. Some of the problems playing out now in the $108 billion private student loan market are reminiscent of those that arose from the subprime mortgage crisis a decade ago, when billions of dollars in subprime mortgage loans were ruled uncollectable by courts because of missing or fake documentation. And like those troubled mortgages, private student loans -- which come with higher interest rates and fewer consumer protections than federal loans -- are often targeted at the most vulnerable borrowers, like those attending for-profit schools.

At the center of the storm is one of the nation's largest owners of private student loans, the National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts. It is struggling to prove in court that it has the legal paperwork showing ownership of its loans, which were originally made by banks and then sold to investors. National Collegiate is an umbrella name for 15 trusts that hold 800,000 private student loans, totaling $12 billion. More than $5 billion of that debt is in default, according to court filings.

399 comments

  1. uh-oh by turkeydance · · Score: 4, Funny

    paper in 2017?

    1. Re: uh-oh by dougdonovan · · Score: 1

      i agree, they still use paper in 2017 ?...when you hire minimum wage kids to handle serious money issues...deal with the results.

    2. Re:uh-oh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I recently paid off my car loan. The bank sent the title, a piece of paper, in the mail to me.
      I've refinanced a car loan in the past and the old bank transferred the title to the new bank who eventually transferred it to me just fine.

      They are perfectly capable of keeping track of the paper if they want to.
      What happens though is that once a debtor goes long enough without paying the bank has to write off the debt. They then sell the debt to a collections agency for whatever they can get and don't care what happens after that.

    3. Re:uh-oh by TWX · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's not wholly the issue.

      There's often a difference between where the loan originates and the loan servicer. The entity that services the loans buys the debt from the original lender, which gets the original lender out of the loan for a small profit, while the servicer then collects principal and interest for their profit.

      Loans may pass through several different servicers throughout their duration. Each time the loan is transferred it is the obligation of the entities in the transaction to properly document that transaction. This is typically easier with loans that are for an item that serves as collateral and has state-issued documentation upon it, like a vehicle or a property, as the act of transferring the loan requires the servicers to file with the state that transaction, but even in cases like that it can get messed up. The problems with subprime real estate and failure to maintain a chain of custody on the documentation is proof of that. When there's no item with a title or deed to serve as a state-mandated bit of ownership documentation though, it's a lot easier to lose track of all of the paperwork that proves who actually owns the loan.

      It sounds like the entities that dealt with student loans bought them from the original lenders but didn't bother to properly document the transactions, and then they sold them, and that transaction was not properly documented either. Get too far from the original lender (or find that lender no longer in existence or having destroyed its own records as the completed sale may allow or mandate) and now it's basically impossible to prove anything. If a servicer presses a case in court and then has no documentation then who's to say that they ever owned the loan that they claim they have?

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    4. Re:uh-oh by houghi · · Score: 2

      Living in Belgium. We must have a lot of things via paper. Especially contracts. That then needs to be scanned.
      If we are unable to find the proof of the debtor, we know that we can't even ask for it. Yes it has happened that we where unable to find the scanned documents. So that is a loss for us. If this happens on occasion, it is just booked off.

      If this would happen on such a large scale, not only would we fire at least one person (and that could be a CxO), but we would fear for the existence of the company as we could lose our license due to (from the top of my head IAMAL) neglegd and attempt of fraud.
      And both are equally bad.

      The investigations would most likely already be under way before it got to that point and we would get a severe warning that would lead to a lot of change in procedures and even stricter control for the next 10 years or so.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    5. Re:uh-oh by slashrio · · Score: 1

      They don't call it "legal paperwork" for nothing.
      If it's not on paper, it's not legal.

      --
      "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
    6. Re:uh-oh by sexconker · · Score: 1

      According to some little law William Jefferson Clinton signed, a digital signature is legally binding.

    7. Re:uh-oh by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      They still like signatures. Those are still mostly on paper.

    8. Re: uh-oh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You commie Eurotrash lack our FREEDOM though! #MAGA

      But seriously, our consumer protection laws are woefully laughably bad.

      Also, the ice cream and waffle carts in Brussels were amazing when I was there. NYC hotdog cart amazing.

  2. Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by cunina · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is exactly the scenario that countless spams and clickbait ads have promised,:that if you challenge the bank's record keeping, you can completely free yourself from your mortgage (and here's your $49 kit to help you do it). Except in this case, it's apparently not total bullshit.

    1. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by jedidiah · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's not bullshit. Any creditor has to be able to prove that you owe them money. it doesn't require a "special kit". It just requires standing up for yourself.

      Don't trust a bill just because someone sent it to you. It could be a billing error or blatant fraud. Scam artists send out small medical bills betting on the mark being diligent enough to pay their bills but not anal enough to track everything they do.

      Hospitals screw up bills more often than not.

      A whole batch of mortgages were nullified in Texas because the proper paperwork was never filed with the relevant government body. The Yankee corporation in question thought they didn't have to bother. Didn't go over will with the Texas judge in question.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    2. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah, this is one of the more baffling aspects of modern American culture, especially on the right. They distrust every single thing about the government, but are happy to believe every single thing out of the mouths of large corporations and throw all their trust behind them. What makes this even less understandable is that one of those entities has a clear motive for lying to you quite a lot of the time, and the other doesn't... and many people will still put their trust behind the party that has clear motive to be dishonest every time.

    3. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hospitals screw up bills more often than not.

      that would imply that hospitals don't do it on purpose, which they do, more often than not.

      health care providers absolutely love the 'double-dip', where patient and insurance company pay a combined amount that's more than the actual bill. and of course, that's on top of the fact that they bill ridiculously-high amounts and play games with different rate charts for different payers and insurance companies in order to maximize profits.

    4. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by msauve · · Score: 0

      "Any creditor has to be able to prove that you owe them money. it doesn't require a "special kit". It just requires sacrificing all personal integrity."

      FTFY.



      There may be legitimate cases where payments weren't tracked, but I'd bet a dollar to a penny that the vast majority of borrowers are just looking to get out of their legitimate debt on a technicality.

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    5. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by UnknowingFool · · Score: 5, Informative

      In the article, it clearly states that like the mortgage boom, student lending also suffered from the same lax paperwork that plagued some mortgages. Invest companies were in such a hurry to buy loans that they didn't keep up with the paperwork or good record keeping. In a few cases mentioned in the article it's not just a matter of the person getting off free; the bad records meant the borrower trying to levy penalties for loans that the borrower never made. So then the lender has to prove that they own any of the loans but they can't prove it.

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    6. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm tired of all this 'Got off on a technicality' crap. It is not the fault of the technicality, IT IS SOMEONE SCREWING UP ENOUGH THAT THEY GET CALLED ON IT.

    7. Re: Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by KGIII · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You responded to a post about the most publican of republican States, where they didn't just take the word of the corporation...

      Sheesh...

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    8. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... and play games with different rate charts for different payers ...

      What is the rate chart for submitter cdreimer?

    9. Re: Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's cuz they were out of state, notice the whole "Yankee" reference?

      Provincialism is alive and well in Texas, that's why they'd be fine if it was a "local" corporation doing the rotten business. See East Texas circuit.

    10. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Vermonter · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well the reason people are more ready to put their trust in private businesses over the government is because if a business tries to screw you over, they have to answer to the government. In theory the government has to answer to another part of the government, but the government can screw you over much more easily than private business can. Would you rather take your bank to court over wrongful billing, or take the IRS to court over wrongful billing? In that matter, would you rather go to your local bank and talk to someone to get a billing error fixed, or find a way to work with the IRS to get a billing error fixed?

    11. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by rtb61 · · Score: 0

      I would hardly call higher education extortion a legitimate debt and those who escape from it are showing real personal integrity, when the system is corrupt, supporting it is dishonourable and lacks integrity, opposing it by what ever means is honourable and demonstrates true integrity. Fuck the higher education loan sharks and the piece of shit politicians who created the scam after being paid off by lobbyists. When people extort your future, pay them back by not paying them back ;D.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    12. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by goombah99 · · Score: 2

      No it's a technicality, Mr. Cappy McShoutypants.

      --
      Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    13. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by gl4ss · · Score: 2

      well in resold debts, they usually tack on some bullshit fees for doing the hard work of changing the paperwork to be in their name and collecting it.

      ie, work that they skipped doing.

      and anyways, maybe it's a good business to sell fake loans to these collection agencies since they apparently don't check _actually_ if they are owed the money.

      (not maybe, it is)

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    14. Re: Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How exactly does one win having a house in Texas?

    15. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not a technicality. You don't seem to understand the issue, it's not about missed payments. Debts are routinely sold to other companies. It happens constantly, for example the vast majority of mortgages aren't held by the business you interacted with to get the mortgage. If a company screws up that debt transfer, as they did here, then you can easily end up in a situation where 10 years down the line the original company says "Hey, you haven't been paying for the past 10 years!" even though you only have two payments left towards the 2nd company. Sorry. You just gifted tens of thousands of dollars to the second company and still owe the entire original dept to the first company as well as all the fines for missing 10 years of payments. You're completely fucked.

      That's why companies need to be able to prove they control the debt, just like you need to get proof you're buying a house from the person who owns it. It's to keep the industry from being completely taken over by scammers. Do you really believe I should be able to mail you a letter saying you owe me $5,000 and then you have no recourse other than to pay me or I garnish your wages? The world would be completely screwed up if that was the case. That's basically what this company was doing since they didn't properly buy the people's debts.

      The borrowers are the ones being sued. They were sued and through that lawsuit discovered that they weren't supposed to be paying the company in the first place. It's not the borrowers looking for a handout, it's a corner cutting company trying to intimidate others into paying debts they don't own.

    16. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Uberbah · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well the reason people are more ready to put their trust in private businesses over the government is because if a business tries to screw you over, they have to answer to the government.

      Second part of the sentence seems to contradict the first.

    17. Re: Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah but if the govt screws over the people, they have to answer to the people...

    18. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you feel you cannot trust the government you are screwed. The government should be an extension of you, me and all around us in society. We are the ones that give government legitimacy and power. Or at least that is how it should be in a civilized democratic society. I find the viewpoint that the government is something outside of "us" a very strange one.

    19. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The person borrowed the money, they failed to make the payments, the fact the documentation can't be found to prove the initial loan because it was onsold is a fucking technicality which they are exploiting.

    20. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by I'm+New+Around+Here · · Score: 4, Informative

      It seems the rest of the paragraph explains the contradiction.

      --
      If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
    21. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Sique · · Score: 4, Interesting
      There once was a saying: Who is not a socialist at 18 is no human. Who is not a conservative at 40 is a fool.

      It's not the colleges as institutions that are leftist and anarchic. It's the people being 18 years old. If we create completely different types of youth educational institutions they will come up as leftist and anarchic too, because the people attending them are.

      It's the old adage: Parents don't understand how their children are at the age of 18 can be so full of anarchic and socialist ideas, because they are now in their 40ies and 50ies and have a quite conservative worldview. And they totally forget how they were at the age of 18 themselves. We hear the constant "oh the Youth". And the parents are quick to blame the colleges for that, because those are the first places the children go without constant parental supervising. Of course it's the colleges' fault that people of young age act like people of young age and people of old age forget how they were when they were at young age.

      --
      .sig: Sique *sigh*
    22. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Arzaboa · · Score: 2

      If you live a very simple life, maybe that is true. Being conservative about ones socialist views isn't a terrible thing. Being a conservative or a socialist asshole is a problem at any given time.

    23. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Sique · · Score: 2
      The actual quote I wanted is:

      Who is not a socialist at age 20 has no heart. Who is not a conservative at age 40 has no brain.

      --
      .sig: Sique *sigh*
    24. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That'd be well and good if the people who run our country gave a damn about their people. The actions, votes, and outcomes of various political events prove that we're basically cattle to corporations and revenue in the eyes of government. Neither gives a shit about the suffering that goes on in their country.

    25. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Rockoon · · Score: 2

      It is not a technicality and there is no moral dilemma.

      You are not arguing that you do not owe money. What you are arguing is that you do not owe them the money.

      Suppose you dutifully pay off some of this note and then a different lender that has documented proof turns up. The best thing that can happen from here is that you get your money back minus an astounding lawyer fee. Other outcomes include not getting your money back. You still owe the whole note to the real owner of your debt.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    26. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      I knew a guy who would change his signature every few years. If someone came up with some old agreement that he wanted out of, he would just say the signature wasn't his and produce a current example to "prove" it.

      I always thought that signatures were a bad form of authentication. Relatively easy to copy, difficult to reliably verify, problematic for people with arthritis and other disabilities, and vulnerable to this kind of fraud.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    27. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by hord · · Score: 1

      Both have motives for lying to you. If you believe the government is different than a corporation you haven't been paying attention to who runs both of them: people.

    28. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well the reality is, when the bank says that you owe money, the courts tend to believe them, paperwork or no. This played out in extreme form during the RE bust. Banks were caught red handed BUYING FORGED DOCUMENTS and submitting them to courts to foreclose on people. And when this came out, they promised to not do that anymore, and paid small fines and continued to foreclose in cases where they had never bothered to file the proper paperwork in the first place.

    29. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The idea goes back to at least John Adams, who (according to Thomas Jefferson) said "A boy of 15 who is not a democrat is good for nothing, and he is no better who is a democrat at 20."

      Which says a lot about the 70-year-old Democrats running for president last year.

    30. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not really, John Adams lived in a different time, with different political parties, so the names meant very different things, and he himself had serious character issues.

      It does say a lot about *YOU* that you rely on snarky quotes though.

    31. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Muros · · Score: 1

      I'm tired of all this 'Got off on a technicality' crap. It is not the fault of the technicality, IT IS SOMEONE SCREWING UP ENOUGH THAT THEY GET CALLED ON IT.

      Being innocent is a technicality.

    32. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      uh, the IRS? the people at the IRS have no incentive to cheat you. If the IRS is taking a position against you, you almost certainly broke the rules.

      And there are not one, not two, but three ways you can take the IRS to court if they really dig in their heels but you think you are right.

    33. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Not supporting the system would be not taking out the loan in the first place. Not paying it back is just being a scumbag.

    34. Re: Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, just imagine if Americans actually voted though. That scares the shit out of politicians today, so there are vibrant and active voter suppression movements. Consider the war on black, nearly 1/3 of black men have been put into prison for crimes white people get a slap on the wrist for, but because they've been incarcerated they lose their right to vote for up to seven years in many states.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement

    35. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yo mama and a fresh bag of cocaine every hour.

    36. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      are just looking to get out of their legitimate debt on a technicality

      If you think being able to prove you owe me money is a "technicality" then you owe me a million (American) dollars.

    37. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That quote changes parties every day.

    38. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by rickb928 · · Score: 2

      No. You are merely incorrect. And I do not rely on media reports and bloggers of dubious reputation, but on direct observation of faculty and in classrooms from Maine to Arizona.

      Colleges and universities are demonstrably dominated by Leftist thought. It's just so, and has been for a generation or more. They just are.

      And this would not be a serious threat to our nation if it were 'merely' leftist thought. But it's a truly dangerous Leftist agenda at work, expressed by deep enduring hatred for wealth and accomplishment, an intention to subvert our nation's government to their singular goals, and a remaking of society at all levels in a way that, if expressed honestly and fully in advance, would leave the vast majority of us recoil in shock and horror, and end up invalidating their efforts.

      The Left resorts to violence to implement their agenda because no other method will suffice. When you realize the depth and breadth of their plans, you will reject them also. Even if you thought the moment before you were one with them. Unless, of course, you are part of the leadership, which leaves you one of the few benefiting.

      --
      deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
    39. Re: Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by rickb928 · · Score: 1

      Only if the people actually hold them to account.

      This is our problem today. Our government has been screwing us over for some time. We've gone along with this until recently.

      --
      deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
    40. Re: Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by rickb928 · · Score: 2

      "nearly 1/3 of black men have been put into prison for crimes white people get a slap on the wrist for,"

      Your numbers are fictional, but your point is actually valid. Sadly, how many of these black men are felons because they live in communities that cannot deal with crime, poverty, and social collapse? Don't ask the Federal government to solve this. Hold the local authorities to account.

      But that is a lot to ask of people who go to sleep fearful their children will be shot dead merely by accident the next day, or even that night. They are focused on survival. They are entitled to better.

      --
      deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
    41. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by rickb928 · · Score: 1

      There is this.

      And of course There is this. And this.

      --
      deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
    42. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not the colleges as institutions that are leftist and anarchic. It's the people being 18 years old.

      18-year-olds are not (or shouldn't be) running the Universities. Now, what is the +40 socialist professor's excuse? According to your saying, they are fools. People are spending loads of money to be "educated" by fools.

    43. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by slashrio · · Score: 1

      the people at the IRS have no incentive to cheat you.

      Or the president asked them to screw you over because of your political opinions.

      --
      "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
    44. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by slashrio · · Score: 1

      You can't read, can you?
      The person borrowed the money from someone else than the one who tries to collect the money, but doesn't have the proof that he owns the debt. He could be screwing the borrower, so the borrower shouldn't pay, unless the collector can prove he owns the debt.
      It's really quite simply like that.

      --
      "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
    45. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by slashrio · · Score: 1

      A debt is only resold if the new 'owner' can prove he owns it.

      --
      "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
    46. Re: Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, just like those that avoid any taxes.

    47. Re: Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Political bias to the right is pretty blatant in most privately owned colleges. Makes sense too: Private sector colleges are biases towards small government, (the right), public to big government (the left).

      If I'm a professor and I am a lefty I join a public college, wouldn't want to deal with religious nuts on the right at a private university!

      If I'm a professor and a righty, I would join a private college. Wouldn't want to deal with those nutty sjws at a public university.

      Both are examples of self-segregation on political lines.

    48. Re: Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      How exactly does one win having a house in Texas?

      Second prize is having two houses in Texas.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    49. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hospitals screw up bills more often than not.

      It is true on this part. However, what can you do when you found out that their billing is erroneous? It is extremely difficult to reverse the billing because hospital and insurance people ALWAYS blame the other and give you a run around. This had happened to my family member before. The hospital first said you need to contact insurance to get the right code. Then the insurance people said they can't do anything but have to get the hospital people correcting the code. Then the hospital people said they can't change unless they get something from the insurance people. At best they would try to get rid of you by telling you that they will change it, but did nothing at all. When you go back to them, they will start the same cycle again. If you don't pay, your credit record will be hit. It may or may not be worth the amount you were billed.

    50. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Trying to figure out that last story: You mean the Yankee corporation gave out the money and are now being punished for failing to report that correctly? Is refusal to pay back a loan because you can in general considered ethical in Texas, or only for Yankees?

    51. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is the reason for notaries. You have to provide legit ID and they sign and stamp that you are the one who signed it some even make copies of the ID. Not so easy to get out of that.

    52. Re: Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How do you figure? It sure looks like we as a populace doubled down. Actual politicians weren't stealing fast enough so we had to put professionals in place who have no idea how to govern but a whole lot of ideas about how to profit from it.

    53. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "especially on the right". This is the internet of 2017. Stereotyping, ignorant cunts.

    54. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by sexconker · · Score: 1

      A simple fix for a lot of it would be to eliminate direct billing. The insurer pays the insured. The insured pays the hospital/doctor/whomever.

      When the insured person gets a check for 6 or 7 figures, they'll take their sweet time handing it over to the hospital, they'll scrutinize the bill and contest all bullshit, they'll risk fleeing the country rather than paying it, the hospital will have to stand in line with everyone else the person owes money to, etc.

      Patients would be able to compare itemized bills and see that hospitals just make up their charges. Hospitals and insurance companies wouldn't be able to play bullshit games where they say they paid $x for something when they paid a small fraction (or nothing). If you force the funds to change hands transparently, then a lot off the backroom bullshit disappears.

      And when the hospital kills a patient or otherwise fucks up, the patient's family will have control of the money. The hospital will have to sue to extract it, and won't get all of it. In the current method, the hospital already gets the money, and it's the insured (or their survivors) who are left to sue and get screwed over by binding arbitration.

      The industry would eventually have to switch primarily to prepayment plans if it wanted to actually secure obscene levels of money the way it does now. And when faced with a bill upfront, many patients would prefer to delay or skip treatment (or seek alternatives).

      Have you ever tried to get medical care with insurance (and "in-network") but without direct billing? No one has a clue how to do it or what to bill your services as. The rates, codes, and descriptions are all made up and do not in any way match the services rendered.

    55. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by sexconker · · Score: 1

      I refer you to the case of How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back.
      "Bureaucrat Conrad, you are technically correct - the best kind of correct."

    56. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by sexconker · · Score: 1

      No, the best thing would be that you get your money back, minus an astounding legal fee, and then have to hand it immediately over to the person that owns the debt, leaving you still heavily in debt as you couldn't pay the full amount owed (due to the interest, penalties, and astounding legal fee).

    57. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except that wouldn't work. That is why they also ask for ID at the time unless it is a small exchange. All loans will require proof of id before it can be accepted

    58. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not to mention sometimes they manage to buy debt that has actually been paid off.

    59. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by qeveren · · Score: 1

      That's kinda weird. Everyone I've ever known has become more socialist-leaning with age.

      --
      Don't just stand there, get that other dog!
    60. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Academia has been left-leaning a lot longer than one generation.

      However, there is no "left", you're assuming that the "left" has goals that are sinister because you disagree with them, and you'll obviously attribute things to "them".

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    61. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by AuMatar · · Score: 1

      Working with the IRS right now to fix a billing problem (two entities reported the same income 2 years ago). The IRS process is much cleaner and more straight forward. They also sent me a letter clearly outlining exactly what they were charging me for, why they thought I underpaid, and what all the changes to my original documentation were. My cable company just randomly changes my bill every few months and even they don't know the reason.

      Yeah, I trust government more every fucking time, and I've never seen a time it was wrong. Its the whole not having a profit motive thing.

      --
      I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
    62. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by AuMatar · · Score: 2

      Because the age and culture it was written in were different. In Europe 30 years ago, liberal meant anti-government (Margaret Thatcher called Reagan "the great liberal of our time"). Conservative meant actually conserving current society. As opposed to US now where conservative means libertarian financials with theocratic social laws, and liberal means a regulated economy with safety net and permissive social laws.

      --
      I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
    63. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by AuMatar · · Score: 1

      Because nobody could bribe a notary, or find the $150 to pay a partner to become one.

      --
      I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
    64. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous+Cow+Ward · · Score: 1

      People should approach both corporations and government with healthy skepticism. The problem with treating the government as a) trustworthy, and b) an extension of myself and others is threefold. One, all governments have shown that they do things in secret - sometimes it's for the good of the public, but often it's not. Two, power corrupts, and generally speaking government has quite a bit of power. Three, not everybody in society has your best interests in mind, but sometimes they have more sway over the government than you do. Sometimes it's quite unbalanced, and they use this power against you in various degrees of secrecy.

      --
      Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
    65. Re: Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lighten up, Francis. It was clearly a joke: today's Democratic party obviously doesn't believe in democracy.

    66. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Dread_ed · · Score: 1

      So do non-transitive dice, yet they exist and eventually do make sense when you learn about them and can consider them as they actually are.

      Similar thing here. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, with a very specific definition of friend where that friend is not now your enemy.

      Personally, I don't trust either corporation or the government to work in my best interests. One has its own agenda combined with special protections under the law and the other is a greedy, bloodsucking parasite on the country. I leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine which is which.

      --
      When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
    67. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Dread_ed · · Score: 1

      The electorate continually elects officials to the federal government that are immensely more wealthy than the average American.

      They don't even have to be corrupt to create policies that are antithetical to the well being of the masses. It only makes sense that they would view life through the lens of who they are. They will make policies based on that experience. There is much they will miss without even the merest hint of malice in them.

      I read about a great solution to this. I can't remember where it was exactly, but I seem to remember it being in the northwest states. Oregon or Washington? The gist of the law was that no one could participate in making welfare assistance laws without having been in the system themselves at some point.

      An analogous solution would be requiring the House of Representative's economic status match closely the economic status of those they represent, with a total representation that matches the economic distribution of the country.

      --
      When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
    68. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      bullshit. I haven't changed an iota. you all just turned cowardly.

    69. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous+Cow+Ward · · Score: 1

      That's a good point, and one I should have touched on. The government can be malicious, but sometimes it's just well-meaning but incompetent.

      I think that law probably goes too far - someone (or several people) who has been on the system should definitely have input, but I worry that limiting it to only people on the system would disenfranchise everyone else. It also sets a dangerous precedent - I don't want only former military members to be able to make laws about the military, or only former ISP executives making laws about ISPs.

      --
      Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
    70. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by MooseMiester · · Score: 1

      I guess you've never heard of ICD, and it's current flavor ICD-10? Otherwise you wouldn't start with the premise that "Hospitals just make up their charges"

      All the crazy bullshit baked into the system was, for the most part, put there by well intentioned regulators not evil people who wanted to steal your money. I lived through this, and watched it happen starting in the early eighties. Heath Care and Insurance are completely fucked up in America because of endless thousand page bills and armies of regulators piling one crazy requirement on top of another one.

      And nobody wants it to end, because every one of those thousand page bills, "reforms", and "mandates" paid off some person who gave money to the politician... The cornhusker kickback. The Alaska payoff, etc. etc. etc. Just look at the current debacle for proof of this. Why do you think they want Single payer? They can payoff every contributor five times over if they control all of it. And who will get screwed? YOU. The Republicans are against it because they will loose all their bribes. It really is as simple as that.

      --
      Murphy was an optimist
    71. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by sexconker · · Score: 1

      The charges are absolutely made up and the codified system is a joke that no one understands or checks for accuracy (and when it changes all hell breaks loose).

      Why do you think there are entire departments and "career colleges" dedicated to the "medical billing" industry?

    72. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by MooseMiester · · Score: 1

      There's a medical billing industry because:

      Medicare billing, thanks to the aforementioned insane layers of regulatory complexity, is so complicated one has to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to figure out how to quote a plan, let alone process a payment.

      In the 80's some idiot in Washington decided that the Doctor's can't work for the hospitals anymore, they had to become "independent contractors" and an entire industry to bill Doctor services was created overnight. I know, I capitalized on this market and wrote software for it.

      Due to the bribery system that runs everything on planet earth, big regulations create huge monopolistic enterprises that are better equipped to pay these bribes and therefore influence legislation. The larger you get, the more inefficient you become, so you hire smaller firms to do what you can't do efficiently. This gave rise to the TPA (Third Party Claims Administrator) and a host of other service businesses.

      The ever benevolent government decided that you can't open an aspirin bottle and give a patient an aspirin, oh the horror. So each aspirin in the hospital is individually wrapped, and therefore costs more. How did this happen? The government capped the margin to "reduce costs". A bottle of aspirin costs $7.99 if the margin is capped at 10% you can mark that up .79 which for a 50 aspirin bottle is .0158 cents per aspirin but an individually wrapped aspirin is $1.00 so you can mark each one up ten cents. That's the idiocy of "One size fits all" federal mandated price controls.

      It used to be that doctors just worked for hospitals and filled out simple time cards and you got charged for what hospital services you used. But no, that couldn't be properly regulated, and because of the politicians allowing malpractice to get out of control hospitals had to limit their liability as it's the doctor that gets sued... So they fired them all, and everything as a diagnostic code and a cap on what will be paid for that code, leading to utilization and review which for all practical purposes are death panels. They meet ever week and say "Hey the patient in room 214 has an ICD 555-772 they have been here 3 days we only get paid for 3 kick grandma out on the street. Never mind that grandma isn't healing as fast as the industry has decided she should. This led to way too many codes, and so things get mis-coded all the time, and of course as we learn more we come up with new things.

      I could go on, and on, and on, and on. The biggest problem with health care costs is 1) Bribes paid to insurance companies in return for contributions and 2) Provider billing practices that have grown out of an over-regulated and over-sued industry and no the solution is not yet another fucking thousand page bill nobody understands implemented by civil servants who don't give a crap... and it's not single payer either that will be worse, go somewhere that has it and live there for a while. The whole industry is designed - with help from the government at every turn - to ensure that you, the patient, have no clue how anything is priced. Which means you can't shop around, and make informed decisions, and there is ZERO INCENTIVE for anyone to make it the least bit competitive.

      What we need to do is start over, which could very well happen when the ACA completely collapses. But given the greed in DC it's not likely.

      --
      Murphy was an optimist
    73. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who is not a socialist at 18 is no human.

      Excuse me but I'm 62 years old and I am a socialist and I am human.

    74. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Uberbah · · Score: 1

      It seems the rest of the paragraph explains the contradiction.

      Not even remotely close.

    75. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Uberbah · · Score: 1

      Personally, I don't trust either corporation or the government to work in my best interests. One has its own agenda combined with special protections under the law and the other is a greedy, bloodsucking parasite on the country. I leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine which is which.

      Attempted cuteness noted, but it's a simple answer to a simple question: capitalism. Capitalism demands both special protections under the law and is a greedy, bloodsucking parasite on the planet. Any more questions?

    76. Re: Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Uberbah · · Score: 1

      Only if the people were actually able hold them to account.

      FTFY. The bipartisan oligarchy works very, very hard to ensure you have a "choice" between capitalist shitbag from Party A , or the shitbag from Party B.

    77. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Dread_ed · · Score: 1

      Noted, and yet we have a system currently where regulators for the government are almost completely staffed by former employees of the businesses they are now regulating. If its good enough for insurance companies, oil companies, textiles, energy production and distribution, wall street, and big pahrma, why not for the average American?

      --
      When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
    78. Re:Lenders Hate This One Weird Trick! by Anonymous+Cow+Ward · · Score: 1

      I'd argue that regulatory positions are different from elected ones, since ultimately elected positions are in charge of many/all appointed positions.

      --
      Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
  3. Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is great news for people who graduated with an AA degree and now work cleaning storage closets!

    1. Re:Wow by slashdice · · Score: 4, Funny

      Even better for everyone with a PhD in Social Justice that is now cleaning storage closets and being an twitter hero.

      --
      Copyright (c) 1990 - 2014 Dice. All rights reserved. Use of this comment is subject to certain Terms and Conditions.
    2. Re:Wow by bugs2squash · · Score: 4, Funny

      Maybe we can thank them for taking such good care of the loan documentation in the storage closets.

      --
      Nullius in verba
    3. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      True enough, because of the great depression I have never managed to pay my student loan for me it was the only way out of it.
      -cdreimer

    4. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yuuup!

  4. What about the fake bills for stuff web services by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 2

    What about the fake bills for stuff like web services that some office secretary use to just pay with out checking them very hard.

  5. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And why should education put people in debt? Educating young people is what ensures the future of a country.

  6. It's time for someone else to pay the piper... by TimothyHollins · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Looks like the average American will have to bail out yet another greedy creditor. I wonder how big the bonuses will be this time.

    1. Re:It's time for someone else to pay the piper... by satsuke · · Score: 2

      Doubtful on a one-off thing like this situation.

      So perhaps the system will work as designed, the creditors took a risk by extending credit, and due to their own actions are unable to collect on the debt.

      e.g. they took the risk and should take the loss for their bet. The exact thing that should have happened in the housing crash of the last decade (bail out the people who will lose their home, not the bank that booked their profit up front with no value assigned to the underlying loan).

    2. Re:It's time for someone else to pay the piper... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the creditors took a risk by extending credit, and due to their own actions are unable to collect on the debt.

      e.g. they took the risk and should take the loss for their bet.

      This is not "credit risk" or risk for extending credit. It means a totally different thing (namely borrower unable/unwilling to pay etc.). The fools took another risk, a stupidity and incompetence risk, that has nothing to do with the "credit risk" which participates in forming the loan prices. They acted sloppily and irresponsibly in financial business, an area where one must act with utmost diligence, meticulousness and responsibility. And no, it won't raise the price for the future loans. It will merely make sure than only these borrowers who can do their work right will stay in the business, and it's a good thing.

    3. Re:It's time for someone else to pay the piper... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Considering that the loans should have been provided by the government (as grants, not loans), this would be a fair result, that could have been reached much easier.

    4. Re: It's time for someone else to pay the piper... by TimMD909 · · Score: 1

      Sounds good. We should get Mexico to pay for it... /s

  7. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    yes yes, only the mark has obligations the parasite has all the rights.

  8. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How do I get to add my mortgage to this? I worked hard to pay for my edu-debt along the way (read a an engineering degree took 9 years at half-time). So I would love to join this crescendo of crap and pay off my house. Any bites? Isn't this the same thing? A person puts their name against a debt and for some reason.. and some circumstance... they receive a get-out-of-debt-free card? Is this too-big-to-fail 2.0?

    Peace.

  9. Re:Too bad. by msauve · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "And why should education put people in debt? Educating young people is what ensures the future of a country."

    Great. How many scholarships are named after Anonymous Coward?

    Even if one agrees that society should bear more of the cost of higher education, that's not a legitimate argument for not paying back a loan - did you justify holding up convenience stores because it went to pay for your attendance at Douchebag College of Illegitimate Rationalizations?

    --
    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
  10. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Can't hear you from the back seat.

    Up here in the front seat we have our new stadium. Which is why we demand you pay inflated tuition, source irrelevant. You'll need to save up, what, ten years of those depressed wages?

    Spend your life in the library, memorize youtube academia, prove your mettle in the field, no one cares until we print you a diploma, HR runs on filters, because you're a number, you're peasant class, all of you. Even you, at six figures, you've been brainwashed into calling yourself wealthy, despite being statistically below true capita.

  11. Re:Too bad. by nevermindme · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Why should one pay loans back, because it lifes lessons, live up to a contract, real people pay their debts.

    There is a free lunch somewhere but you might have to hoof it. Because every collage grad walked up to a education lunch counter and ate the lunch special and not the internet soup line. It is not even like one has to walk between my metaphorical soup kitchens to gain knowledge, entire subject matters are 3 clicks away.

    An education can be had for free online in multiple places for free. The accreditation and the degree that go with a what was thought as an education a commodity that has a decreasing value every day past that day in may.

  12. Re:Too bad. by blankinthefill · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I love how we always talk about personal responsibility and corporate responsibility, but it's always the little guy that gets hit by it. Why is it the borrowers ethical responsibility to pay the loan back, but not the owner of the loan's responsibility to actually track what people owe them? Seems to me that ethically, if you can't prove someone owes you something, then they don't owe you jack.

  13. Dang! by pubwvj · · Score: 1

    Dang! This almost makes me wish I had student loans instead of working 50 hours a week to get through college and pay as I went. It would have been a lot easier.

    1. Re:Dang! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dang! This almost makes me wish I had student loans instead of working 50 hours a week to get through college and pay as I went. It would have been a lot easier.

      I took out loans and paid them back on schedule (i.e. max interest). It worked out just fine for me and I consider it a good investment. It definitely was easier than working 50 hours. I had more leisure time and more time/energy to devote to study.

      So, based on my experience, you really should have taken out loans rather than working. Especially if you went to a low priced school or went 20 years ago when costs were more reasonable.

      If your point is a sarcastic "aw shucks I guess burning the candle at both ends us pointless", well, yeah. If you didn't love the work, or you are bitter about it now I'd say you made the wrong decision.

      None of this changes based on this story though. If these lenders screwed up its on them. If their shareholders are left holding the bag, that's just the way it goes.

      If the taxpayers have to make either of these groups whole, that'd be annoying.

    2. Re:Dang! by pubwvj · · Score: 1

      I think you may be missing your humorous bone... Don't take life too seriously.

  14. Re:Too bad. by Asgard · · Score: 3, Informative

    On the other hand, _if_ the lender can't demonstrate you owe them, couldn't it be that they no longer own the loan? What happens if you pay them and it turns out someone else bought the loan and now wants to be paid? I'm guessing there are scenarios where you'd end up paying twice.

    You should pay your legitimate bills, but its reasonable to make sure you are paying the correct party to protect yourself.

  15. "new submitter"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My ass! The user name "cdreimer" was signed up by someone who noticed that creimer was too obtuse to register his own name...

    Then Slashdot management decided to revoke the cdreimer account and give it to creimer! Is that acceptable?

    cdreimer is creimer

    about as "new" as the crust in his underwear

    1. Re:"new submitter"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you sound bitter, bro

    2. Re:"new submitter"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Baffled by Slashdot's decision. creimer is a fucking moron for not signing up his precious name, he deserves no special protection. Has a user name ever been protected on slashdot?

      Why does he deserve special treatment?

    3. Re:"new submitter"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Same politically correct special treatment than gays, handicapped, blind, retard, etc. people would get. An organization has to protect itself, even if it means allowing somebody to have multiple accounts and thus fool the moderation system and the firehose/publication system.

    4. Re:"new submitter"? by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Baffled by Slashdot's decision.

      Management neither confirm nor deny my DMCA takedown request for cdreimer. They simply deleted the account without explanation. I claimed that username when it became available again.

      Why does he deserve special treatment?

      I complained to management and got results. Don't like it? Stop whining in the comments and do something about it. Management may not be sympathetic to you since I'm only using cdreimer to submit stories.

    5. Re:"new submitter"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, you certainly got results. You got fag picks and bad worker pick of you with your personal info all over the internet and in comments here. Great accomplishment.

    6. Re:"new submitter"? by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      You got fag picks and bad worker pick of you with your personal info all over the internet and in comments here.

      The majority of those links are broken. Unless your last name is Trump, no one cares about Russian image websites.

      BTW, I'll be making a YouTube video on how to take down images from Russian websites using Google Chrome "translate to English" feature.

  16. Perfect Timing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I just paid off my undergraduate and graduate loans thinking I was being all responsible and shit...

    1. Re:Perfect Timing by mspohr · · Score: 1

      You were being responsible and your credit rating will show that. You do benefit.

      --
      I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
  17. "deeply flawed" collection cases by roc97007 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "deeply flawed" documentation.

    I really wonder about that. I had difficulty getting a job after college, and like a lot of others my student loan went into collection. Two years after graduation, in another state, I landed a well paying job, contacted the collection agency through an old notice and made payments, eventually paying it off.

    And then, about a year later, I got contacted by a collection agency (the same or a different, I don't know -- didn't keep track) that I still owed $500-something on my student loan. I was doing well at the time, so I paid it off again just to make it all go away.

    Three years later, I moved to a different state and got a new job, and a collection agency *again* contacted me about my student loan, saying I still owed a little over $200. I argued vehemently that I had already paid off the damn thing twice. They got really rude over the next few weeks, called work and home at all hours, and being nasty to whomever answered. I swallowed my pride and paid it off for a third time.

    That was a couple decades ago, and I haven't gotten any calls since. But here's the punchline. My most recent job required that I provide evidence of my degree. I'd never been asked this before, and looking through all my decades-old paperwork, some never opened through moves from one state to another to another, I couldn't find my diploma.

    No problem, right? Contact the school, get a copy of the diploma, send it to HR.

    The school had no record that I had ever attended.

    Let that sink in for a moment.

    So I went backwards from the student loan docs, which showed that I attended the school from year1 to year2. The school eventually had to admit that I had been a student there, but they had lost all records of that time. I got them to put that in a letter, which my work grudgingly accepted. Next time I'm not putting my education on my resume.

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    1. Re:"deeply flawed" collection cases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The school had no record that I had ever attended.

      Thanks for re-affirming the fact that I have lost all hope in the human species.

      Things might be getting "safer" and might appear to be getting "better" .. but it's 2017, homo-spains have been around for 10's of thousands of years .. yet

      The school had no record that I had ever attended.

      That bares repeating ...

      The school had no record that I had ever attended.

      And AI is supposed to take over all of our jobs .. can't happen soon enough ....

    2. Re:"deeply flawed" collection cases by Zontar_Thing_From_Ve · · Score: 2

      Next time I'm not putting my education on my resume.

      Your story was pretty interesting and a good cautionary tale to share with us, but that's not the conclusion I would advise. If you're in IT, I want to warn you that for some time now many IT jobs flat out require a college degree just to even talk to them about the opening, let alone get hired. I've worked with guys over 50 who don't have college degrees but do have decades in the field and in some cases they get sort of grandfathered in based on experience, but I have also known of one of the guys getting turned down for jobs he could do with no interview at all simply because he didn't have a college degree. And your school sounds like some kind of fly by night school like a tech school rather than a real university. I notice that you don't say much about what kind of school it is. All I can tell you is that a real accredited university would not be expected to lose track of your education. My university certainly knows when I graduated as they beg me for money every year and I do give them some and the mailer always has my year of graduation on it. You call it "college" but I don't know. Sounds to me to be something like "DeVry University" or a similar school rather than Insert Name Of Your State Here University.

    3. Re:"deeply flawed" collection cases by pnutjam · · Score: 1

      I went to ITT tech (yes, I'm embarrassed). They didn't teach me much, but it helped me get my foot in the IT door. I don't have the diploma and went through a similar experience. ITT finally came up with my transcripts, but I walked away from the job offer due to the massive delays, mostly caused by ITT.

    4. Re:"deeply flawed" collection cases by maz2331 · · Score: 1

      This situation will be changing over the next decade or so, simply because men are fleeing the university system in droves nowadays. Current enrollment is up to 2/3 female, and women don't tend to gravitate toward the IT field. Those flat-out requiring degrees will have an ever-shrinking talent pool to draw on.

    5. Re:"deeply flawed" collection cases by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      Yes, you called it. I went to one of thim ther' tekneekal schools. Probably the worst decision I have ever made in a reasonably long life, and the one life decision that has had the most far-reaching consequence. Kids, don't try this at home. Really. Go to a real college. And when you get your diploma, put it somewhere really safe.

      I recognize that this job could be the last technical job I ever have, unless I go into business for myself. To that end, I have a side business that's starting to make money. I'm not stupid. Well, any more.

      The reason I related the story was that I strongly suspect these collection agencies keep track of the people who actually (eventually) made good on their debts, and put them in a "sucker" file, some poor schmuck who could perhaps be shaken down multiple times. Had I the backbone to stand up to them at the time, things might have been different. Had the amount been greater, perhaps I would have. Maybe picking an amount I'd be more likely to just pay off to be done with it, was part of the plan. And maybe my resistance to the third payoff was what finally got them to drop me as a "client".

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    6. Re:"deeply flawed" collection cases by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      I'm sorry. I completely understand the experience. In my case HR didn't come after me until after I had started work, and it took literally months to work out, including considerable effort and research on my part. I had no idea there was a government FISA website that had records back to the beginning of time.

      A friend of mine graduated from ITT back in the eighties. Aren't they out of business now? He went through something similar recently, and was ultimately unsuccessful getting a copy of his transcript. Similar to my experience, but different school.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    7. Re:"deeply flawed" collection cases by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      Things tend to go back and forth. You might be right.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    8. Re:"deeply flawed" collection cases by pnutjam · · Score: 1
    9. Re:"deeply flawed" collection cases by MooseMiester · · Score: 1

      Thanks. Not the least bit surprised. Get into management this kind of thing is every day...

      --
      Murphy was an optimist
  18. Re:Too bad. by msauve · · Score: 1

    I don't disagree. But I'd bet that's the rare exception to the rule.

    --
    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
  19. Re:Too bad. by UnknowingFool · · Score: 2

    Sure, those who provided loans should have tracked things better, but that doesn't eliminate the ethical responsibility borrowers have to pay back what they agreed.

    True but one issue brought up is that the lenders can't prove what the borrowers loaned so it would be impossible for them to pay back. In one case mentioned, a woman disputes some of the loans in question because she claims that she never went to a college that the lender says she did. She doesn't dispute the other loans. However, then the judge had to ask the lender to prove what she owed. And they can't.

    The end result will only be to raise the cost of loans for future borrowers.

    How will the cost of loans be raised for future borrowers? Interest rates are what determines the cost. And the fact of the matter is that the lenders by law have to follow certain guidelines.

    --
    Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
  20. Re:Too bad. by slick7 · · Score: 1

    Corporate responsibility is to screw personal responsibility. In a country that is supposedly as great as ours, all education should be free. One year of our military budget could end hunger, poverty, medical care, the educational crises in this country. Five years, on this planet, nah. Remove the financial burden from a people, and see what inspiration could really accomplish.

    --
    The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
  21. Re:Too bad. by msauve · · Score: 0

    " the lenders can't prove what the borrowers loaned so it would be impossible for them to pay back."

    "What the borrowers loaned?" Sorry, you don't get out of the loan just because you didn't get a decent education.

    --
    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
  22. Awsome by wolfheart111 · · Score: 1

    Its the best thing ill Gotten Gain could be spent on. :)

    --
    [($)]
  23. Re:Too bad. by aaarrrgggh · · Score: 1

    The issue is apparently validating the chain of custody of the loans if I understand correctly. This might have a big impact on loan securitization, which I have mixed feelings about. Long term it will make access to credit much more restricted, likely driving up costs. These loans have more than the principal in finance charges though, so I guess they expected to write off half of them.

  24. Dodd-Frank II time by Tablizer · · Score: 2

    Student loans need better regulation before we have the equivalent of the mortgage meltdown for education loans.

    The mortgage bubble nearly threw us into Great Depression 2.0. (Yes, I do credit Obama for saving us. GOP's "recovery" plan was too close to Hoover's for comfort.)

  25. Re:Too bad. by UnknowingFool · · Score: 1

    You do understand that if the lender can't tell you (and document) what you owe, how can you pay it back?

    Bank: "This person owes $10,000 dollars your honor"
    Borrower: "No I don't. I only owe $5,000"
    Judge: "Where is the promissory note for any amounts"
    Bank: "We don't have any."
    Judge: "How are you going to make the defendant pay any amount of a loan for which you have no documentation? How do I know that the borrower owes you the money?"

    Sorry, you don't get out of the loan just because you didn't get a decent education.

    And where is this coming from? Freudian slip?

    --
    Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
  26. Who ends up paying? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Who loses money? Stock holders?

    1. Re:Who ends up paying? by slashrio · · Score: 1

      What do you think?
      In the financial business gains are privatized and losses are socialized.

      --
      "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
  27. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you think YOU know everyone that's owned every piece of private debt you've ever had, then you've either never had a significant amount of private debt, or you're wrong. And if I, as a borrower, am paying someone, then they had better be able to prove that they own my debt. Because if they DON'T, how do I even know it's going towards paying me debt? And if they've lost track of it... then who exactly am I, as a borrower, supposed to pay? It is NOT unreasonable, as a borrower, to ensure that I am paying the right people for my debt. There is no technicality here, there are people screwing up, badly, and then being petulant when they get called out on their screw-ups.

  28. Bahahaha Nope. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Read about the amazing degree to which the courts looked the other way on paperwork during the mortgage crisis and tell me you believe the courts will side against the lenders. Please.

    Here's a great example: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/matt-taibbi-courts-helping-banks-screw-over-homeowners-20101110

  29. cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    cap student loans / income based pay back with say an max interest rate of 2-3% and max pay back time 20 years. And you are under X income then you pay 0.

    or just have cheaper 11 or 7 come back for them as how meany banks would give someone 150K to get that PHD in medieval studies?

    1. Re:cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by msauve · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "cap student loans / income based pay back with say an max interest rate of 2-3% and max pay back time 20 years. And you are under X income then you pay 0."

      I don't disagree, but the result may be different that you expect - the availability of loans might dry up. And feel free to give money away, if you believe that's a good thing, no one's stopping you.

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    2. Re:cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by mspohr · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Federal loans could easily be set to 2-3% since that is less than the cost of borrowing. Federal government can easily borrow an unlimited amount of money at 1-2%.
      It's the banks and "middlemen" who demand more.

      --
      I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
    3. Re:cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by msauve · · Score: 2

      "Federal loans could easily be set to 2-3% since that is less than the cost of borrowing."

      The current 30 year treasury yield as of July 17, 2017 is 2.90%. And you're neglecting to account for the cost of paperwork and defaults.

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    4. Re:cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by guruevi · · Score: 2

      That's already the case though, interest rates on student loans are extremely low and payback extremely long. That's exactly the problem you're trying to avoid, it's basically "free money" for 18-25 year olds which for all intents and purposes are still teenagers with matching impulse control.

      And as long as particular colleges remain government-funded status symbols, people will continue paying for it, most students do not need to go to Yale/Harvard/MIT yet the demand for more well known school is far more than the schools can sustain building.

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
    5. Re: cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Do this to fix your country:

      Tax the rich to provide education for everyone and tax inheritance agressively.
      Take away power from corporations.
      Cut military spendings to 1/10.

    6. Re: cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by Highdude702 · · Score: 1

      If we cut our military spending by 90% who would be there to back and or make sure your county isn't invaded? Because right now for a majority of the world, the USA plays big brother fighting for them.

    7. Re:cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by Rockoon · · Score: 1

      most students do not need to go to Yale/Harvard/MIT

      There is a very high correlation between going to an "Ivy League" institution and significantly better future outcomes.

      Looks to me like you are masking your opinion, pretending it to be what other people "need."

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    8. Re:cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by DarkOx · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Well there should not be many defaults, since student loans are not secured against collateral they have been made legally much harder to discharge in bankruptcy and related proceedings/actions.

      I still say the problem is student loans are even a thing. College costs so much because the have a starry eyed clientele that is by and large unfamiliar with the amount of money involved. Many may have never even had a sum on the same order of magnitude their total debt will be when they finish school if they take the loan. A large portion have never even used credit before, other than borrowing $20 from mom!

      Its a very abstract concept to them. They can't rationally judge if its better to pay a little less at South Harmon Institute of Technology, or go Harmon with its nicer dormitories, better food, and amazing sports complex. The market place is completely distorted by all the easy loan money running around.

      If we stopped doing federal loans, and removed the bankruptcy protections, these collateralized loans would mostly disappear form the market place. Two things would happen, collage would get cheaper, and focus on core objectives. There is no point in having a fancy school students can't afford to attend. Many people would probably delay college until they had something to borrow against. I suspect this might also have a positive effect in terms of people having a better idea of what they want out of college.

      --
      Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
    9. Re:cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Student loan interest in the US pays for Obamacare subsidies. If you remove that, you are taking poor people away from insurance.
      Congratulations on your liberal paradise where you have to rip off college students in order to give hand outs to poor who need medical insurance.

      By the way, the whole can't discharge student loans in bankruptcy started when the government started taking over student loans.

    10. Re: cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by mspohr · · Score: 1

      The current federal funds rate is 1.25 percent. The Federal Reserve expects to raise the rate once in 2017, to 1.5 percent.

      --
      I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
    11. Re:cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >the availability of loans might dry up
      That's good! Once the government made private student loans non-dischargeable in bankruptcy, money flowed like water. Schools raised their tuition, and banks threw money at everyone no matter what their ability to actually succeed in collage was or the value of the degree afterwards.

      A more realistic system would evaluate your ability and your perspective ability to repay the loan based on the probable earning ability after graduation.

    12. Re:cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, there is a correlation between going to an ivy league and better future outcomes, but that might have a lot to do with the inputs and not the processing that happens at ivy leagues. Rich well connected people send their children to ivy leagues where they meet other rich well connected people and become rich well connected people. Even if they didn't go to an ivy league, they'd most probably still be rich well connected people. I know several people who went to harvard, they weren't from rich, well connected families. They graduated with good marks, and they're at a similar standing in life as I am, another non-rich, non-well connected individual who went to a state school.

    13. Re: cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by nedlohs · · Score: 1

      The federal funds rate is the rate at which banks loan to each other overnight to meet reserve requirements. It is not the rate at which the Federal government borrows money - that's what treasury bonds define.

    14. Re:cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by nedlohs · · Score: 1

      > There is a very high correlation between going to an "Ivy League" institution and significantly better future outcomes.

      Better than what?

      Than people of the same socio-economic backgrounds who go to a different school? Than everyone else regardless of socio-economic background? Than everyone else regardless of socio-economic background but attending the same pre-college schools with the same results?

    15. Re:cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by jeff4747 · · Score: 1

      How about instead of calling it a "loan" tied to individuals, we just tax people. Taxes collected over a ~45 year working life are way, way, way, way more money than a student loan. Those taxes also tend to be higher when the person is better able to pay them, instead of student loan payments hitting just as one is attempting to start their career.

      "But then everyone will major in underwater basket weaving!!!" College graduates make more money, and thus pay more taxes, no matter what their degree is in. That degree in whatever-you-want-to-make-fun-of studies makes the person more employable and more likely to get promoted than someone with only a high school diploma, resulting in higher income.

      "But I didn't get a degree and I'm doing great!!!" Congratulations on your good luck. Also, a degree might have explained what an "outlier" is in a statistical context.

    16. Re: cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by mspohr · · Score: 1

      T bill rates today are 1.04 to 1.37 %

      --
      I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
    17. Re:cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by penandpaper · · Score: 1

      If those starry eyed clientele can't handle the responsibilities of a loan they sign up for then they can't handle the responsibilities of voting either. At some point people are adults and can participate in legally binding contracts. Their young, but lets not continue to infantilize them and dismiss any responsibility.

      Previously it was "make education available". Now that education is available the primary clientele have to be responsible with that availability. The goal is now "make education affordable". I am not sure what the right answer is but let's stop treating adults like children.

    18. Re:cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2

      I still say the problem is student loans are even a thing. College costs so much because the have a starry eyed clientele that is by and large unfamiliar with the amount of money involved.

      Certainly the structure of the loans need addressed. A student loan should be a loan for books and tuition, and nothing else.

      But how did we get here? Even back in the 1970's, there was a obsessive effort to get students and their parents in line with the concept of you were academic and going to college, or you were a piece of shit.

      The ever practical but annoying shit that I am, in High School, I took both Academic major and Vocational Electronics. This got me several visits with the counselors and even a long visit with the school principle to dissuade me because I would be thought of as stupid. That's the background.

      Over the years, it only got worse. As brainwashed parents and their brainwashed larvae were willing to pay anything for a college education and degree, the schools took advantage of the simple supply and demand that they continually raised tuition, far beyond the inflation rate. Then they started the management game. When I started, we had two accountants. When I retired, we had buildings of them, and accountants and managers far outnumbered the researchers and academics.

      Meanwhile the debt piled up on the Students.

      With state subsidies going away, the universities just got rid of some of the lowlies and hired a few more managers and upped the tuition some more. So here we are, and how to fix it without making a hellava mess is not terribly apparent.

      Many may have never even had a sum on the same order of magnitude their total debt will be when they finish school if they take the loan.

      It is a pity that students aren't taught basic money handling skills in middle through high school. I suspect the Universities would oppose that, because the math is simple and compelling. The loan cost, plus the prospects of employment in your "field", shows that few majors will allow you to pay off your debt.

      If we stopped doing federal loans, and removed the bankruptcy protections, these collateralized loans would mostly disappear form the market place.

      Exactly THIS! It would be seriously opposed by the Universities, but that's just proof it is on point.

      Two things would happen, collage would get cheaper, and focus on core objectives.

      It would certainly make things interesting for a while. The question is what to do with all of those middle managers and accountants.

      But their house of cards is all built on the idea that a philosophy major is as important as a chemical engineer. That a gender studies degree is as important as an MBA.

      Because at present, a person can get a loan and build up 100 K or more of debt, and upon graduation, is not looking at employment opportunities that will allow them to realistically be able to repay the loan. Its simple math.

      So while it is nice to have majors like English, philosophy and gender studies, the idea those are not fields that have a post-graduate employment system other than new professors at the university, and with hundreds of students looking at 2 or 3 jobs, the math likewise doesn't work.

      I'd even suggest cutting back on student loans for majors that only prepare you to work at McDonald's.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    19. Re: cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Usa has fought in 150 wars in last century, uk in 100, most others far far fewer.

    20. Re: cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by nedlohs · · Score: 1

      If student loans are to fully repaid by the borrower between 90 days and 2 years that would be the rate the compare with. I doubt that's the case though.

    21. Re: cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by mspohr · · Score: 1

      How about 5 years at 1.87 or 10 at 2.3 % ?
      Still much cheaper than the scumbag banks.

      --
      I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
    22. Re:cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by slashrio · · Score: 1

      Federal government is fucked for borrowing money.
      They should print it themselves.

      --
      "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
    23. Re: cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by slashrio · · Score: 1

      Almost.
      Your #1 point should be: Get rid of the Federal Reserve Bank.
      (It's not 'Federal', it's not a Reserve, and it's not a Bank.)

      --
      "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
    24. Re: cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by slashrio · · Score: 1

      You're contradicting yourself.
      First you say that the US is spending to prevent other countries from being invaded.
      Then you imply that stopping spending on protecting other countries, will get the US invaded.

      --
      "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
    25. Re:cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      feel free to give money away, if you believe that's a good thing, no one's stopping you.

      Yes, I'm pretty sure most of us on Slashdot could finance a nation wide student loan system to replace the government's.

      Pillock.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    26. Re: cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by Highdude702 · · Score: 1

      Where did i mention the US getting invaded?

      If we cut our military spending by 90% who would be there to back and or make sure your county isn't invaded?

      Meaning USA = Majority of world's bodyguard.

      Because right now for a majority of the world, the USA plays big brother fighting for them.

      meaning if we cut our spending by so much, we would have to say fuck defending any territory that is not 100% USA. Which don't get me wrong, I feel that we should not be sending money and power to help others while at the same time its adding greatly on out national debt. Then again there are a lot of things that could be trimmed down in the budget. Schools are not one of the things.

    27. Re:cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by DarkOx · · Score: 1

      If those starry eyed clientele can't handle the responsibilities of a loan they sign up for then they can't handle the responsibilities of voting either.

      Totally agree being allowed to vote should require you prove you a net tax payer, in the relevant jurisdiction.

      --
      Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
    28. Re:cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This got me several visits with the counselors and even a long visit with the school principle

      Was it written like that on his door?

    29. Re:cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      at those rates, you're not even keeping up with inflation. Lenders would be better off buying bonds.

    30. Re:cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      This got me several visits with the counselors and even a long visit with the school principle

      Was it written like that on his door?

      "You're such a smart young fellow, Ol. If you attend Vocationl Electronics as well as Academic, no one will think of you as doing something hard - they'll just think of you as that stupid kid that had to go to Vo-Tech.

      And on and on. Finally I just said "You make some sense, I'll have ot think about this!" in order to end the meeting.

      Turns out however, that taking both courses has stood me well, both career-wise, and financially.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    31. Re:cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by bhv · · Score: 1

      Simply make the loans Federal and prorate the payback based on grades and productivity. Get it done well (3.8+) and on schedule (4-years) and it's a freebie. Be a slacker or partier for the a few years and it's on you.

      Taxpayers and society win both ways.
       

    32. Re: cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      Then stop being big brother. Problem solved.

    33. Re: cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      The Fed is owned and run by the federal government. It is a bank, by any reasonable definition of the word.

    34. Re:cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 1

      The other thing that this educational effort did was convince people that University is a job training organization. Gender studies, angel-pinhead-counting, and other speculation are exactly what universities are for -- where else? Those sorts of people are even best kept in academia: otherwise they might form part of the public debate.

      --
      Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
    35. Re: cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by nedlohs · · Score: 1

      5 years is too short for a loan meant for a 3-4 year degree before the hopefully good job comes. 10 years at 2.3% was the entire point that that means 2-3% is not less than the cost of borrowing considering there are paperwork costs and defaults to cover.

    36. Re: cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by Highdude702 · · Score: 1

      I would love that, unfortunately half our population wants to play Captain save a hoe for the rest of the world, while the rest of the world calls us pieces of shit. I've been saying since I was old enough to understand what is happening that we need to spend less on helping others until we no longer need that money to help our own poor and hungry people.

    37. Re: cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by slashrio · · Score: 1

      The Federal Reserve is owned by private banks, and isn't part of the government. Sorry.

      --
      "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
    38. Re:cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by SuiteSisterMary · · Score: 1

      Ok, but what's the *causal* relationship, if any?

      --
      Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
    39. Re: cap studen loans / imcome based pay back with by MooseMiester · · Score: 1

      If you confiscated all the wealth of the top 1% it would fund the government for about a week and a half. Then what?

      So you want to kill the means of production, and centralize it in the government. I think you need to take a trip to Russia, or Eastern Europe, and ask the people there how that system worked.

      Eliminate the military. Awesome! When you are a slave or someone else that conquered you I'm sure they will let you complain about how unfair that all is.

      --
      Murphy was an optimist
  30. Re:Too bad. by msauve · · Score: 1

    "You do understand that if the lender can't tell you (and document) what you owe, how can you pay it back?"

    Account for yourself, assuming you learned basic math with your education.

    --
    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
  31. Re:Too bad. by DRJlaw · · Score: 3, Informative

    This sounds like a bunch of debtors who've found a loophole to get out of their legitimate obligations.

    This sounds like a bunch of creditors that cannot show that the debtors owe those particular creditors those particular obligations. Ergo, the obligations cannot be assumed to be legitimate.

    The borrower may owe someone, but they don't necessarily owe the plaintiff. If the original creditor isn't interested in collecting on the debt (because they've already sold it off) or helping the successor creditor fix their colossal screw-up, that's not on the debtor.

    Sure, those who provided loans should have tracked things better, but that doesn't eliminate the ethical responsibility borrowers have to pay back what they agreed.

    Ah, you're confusing legality and ethics. Legality relates to obligations specified by law and enforced by courts. Ethics relates to "feels," the dictates of invisible men in the sky, and anything that you can throw at a wall that advantages you at the time.

    For example, ethics would say that private loans that were dischargeable in bankrputcy prior to 1998 should have remained so, and not been converted into non-dischargeable obligations by an after-the-fact change in the law. That was the bargain struck when the loans were made, right? Or is yours merely a creditor's ethics, where any discharge of a debt is the failing of a weak society rather than a penalty for creditors who fail to ensure that a debtor was credit worthy and/or a manifestation of the risk side of the risk/reward equation?

    The end result will only be to raise the cost of loans for future borrowers.

    Proof required. Show me a substitute investment that is not dischargeable in bankruptcy, has an equivalent rate of return, and is virtually unregulated.

    The end result will be a bunch of beneficiaries will sue a bunch of trustees responsbile for administrating the loan trusts for being incompetent idiots, and future, somewhat more competent trusts will arise to accept capital that is desperate for anyplace to go that is paying better than T-bill rates of return (2-3%).

  32. the NBA and NFL need minor leagues so that we can by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    the NBA and NFL need minor leagues so that we can cut the joke classes that student athletes take (when the team needs 40-60 hours you don't time for class)

  33. Re:Too bad. by sjames · · Score: 4, Insightful

    At the same time, odds are at least some are being hit up for more than they owe, perhaps being double billed. There may even be some that actually don't owe any money. We can't tell how many because the paperwork is too screwed up to show that the loans even exist.

    Since these loans were bought, it is safe to say that none of the debtors agreed to owe the current holder of the loan.

    It's more interesting to pull back a level. There we see a financial industry so high on itself that it figured it didn't NEED proof of anything. Just point and say "He owes me money" and the courts would oblige. Sadly, they weren't wrong at the time. But after screwing around for 10 years soiling their own reputation at every turn, it is no longer true. Now judges want to see proof (like they should have all along).

  34. Re:Too bad. by UnknowingFool · · Score: 3, Informative

    Account for yourself

    By your logic, anyone can claim that you owe them money and not have to provide any evidence. I owe student loans but not to XYZ Corp. According to you I should just pay them. Wait, ABC Corp says I owe them the money, should I pay them too. The bare minimum these companies had to do was to keep up with paperwork. Why do you make them also equally accountable? Or are you just beholden to a corporation?

    , assuming you learned basic math with your education.

    I learned basic math but I seem to be more versed in the law than you. You have to prove what you say in court. If you can't then the court doesn't have to believe you.

    --
    Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
  35. Re:Too bad. by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

    Actually, 'securitization' and resale(often multiple layers) of debt has been a very, very, popular trend; and at least in property mortgages, led to quite a few situations where nobody seemed to have any idea(much less be willing to tell the borrower) who was actually supposed to be getting paid; had a claim to the collateral in the event of a default, etc.

    Making a loan and then keeping it on your books for the duration of its repayment period is increasingly quaint. That's one of the reasons why the time-saving "just make it up" method of bookkeeping became popular. Standards of documentation designed under the assumption that creditors would retain loans became cumbersome when they were chopping them up and reselling them; so they decided to adopt more convenient standards.

  36. Re:Too bad. by mspohr · · Score: 1

    I think all education should be free but that is not the point here.
    These people took out private loans for education. The people writing these loans were somewhat shady and they bundled the loans and sold them to investors looking to make a quick buck. They have been aggressive in collecting the loans and fees but the problem is that they don't have proper documentation that they actually own the loan.
    If I had a loan that was serviced by these jerks, I'd default and when they came after me just ask them to "show me your papers". It doesn't sound like they have any of the papers so all of these people could get out of their debt.
    Those on the right are always touting the importance of following the letter of the law. Now it's time to make the lenders follow the letter of the law... no paper, no payments.

    --
    I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
  37. Re:Too bad. by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Silly communist. "Personal responsibility" means paying whatever your betters say you owe. Malfeasance doesn't exist; and alleged 'mistakes' are fake news.

  38. Re:Too bad. by msauve · · Score: 0

    "By your logic, anyone can claim that you owe them money and not have to provide any evidence. "

    I've neither said nor implied any such thing. I've just said people are ethically bound to pay their debts, and they should be just as responsible for knowing what those debts are as the lenders.

    Law has nothing to do with it.

    --
    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
  39. Say what? by sentiblue · · Score: 1

    Missing documentation can be explained in many ways.... but fake? WTF?

  40. Re:Too bad. by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

    This sounds like a bunch of debtors who've found a loophole ...

    No, it sounds just like what's in TFS:

    ... because documents proving who owns the loans are missing.

    You don't keep track of who owns your loans.

    You can't get hold of that spaghetti shit.

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  41. Re:Too bad. by mspohr · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If you're too stupid to keep track of the money you've paid out then you deserve to lose it.
    These lenders are relying on intimidation and bullying to get paid when they don't have their paperwork.
    So sorry, follow the letter of the law, sucker.

    --
    I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
  42. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... the ethical responsibility ...

    What, like the banks have to their investors? Giving loans to people with no assets and a 41.5% probability of not paying it back, is not a viable business model. These banks thought they could use US usury laws to screw-over the young borrowers for a long time and didn't worry about due diligence. Banks have to earn the right to abusive laws written for their benefit, not assume they can throw their weight around in a courtroom because neo-liberal policies are king.

    ... raise the cost of loans for future borrowers.

    Which will hopefully cause young students to self-select against education loans despite the peer/social pressure to make such a bad life-choice.

  43. Re:Too bad. by satsuke · · Score: 1

    Might be quaint, but some banks do still do this on home mortgages and it can be a factor in whom you take out a loan with.

    My first mortgage in 2004 was with the bank that originated it / they never sold their portfolio for servicing. I never had reason to seek exception or talk to a loan officer, but the option was there.

    The subsequent refinance to a lower rate and shorter term was sold/packaged and servicer replaced before the first payment was due.

  44. Re:Too bad. by radarskiy · · Score: 2

    "I'd bet that's the rare exception"

    In 2013, 59% of all mortgages were sold to third parties. See Chart 2: http://bipartisanpolicy.org/wp...

  45. Re:Too bad. by MangoCats · · Score: 1

    If you accept that the world is not black and white, and that some obligations are more legitimate than others, then many of these obligations may be in that grey zone approaching predatory, unconscionable, and even illegitimate.

    Certainly some debtors in this pool knew exactly what they were getting into, and received good and valuable education as a result of taking on this debt, but there is a big piece of that industry that pushes people into debt they have little or no realistic chance of repaying by the terms of the loan, knowing they will profit on the whole from those who try to make good, pay more than they borrowed, but drown under interest, fees, etc.

  46. Re:Too bad. by Luthair · · Score: 4, Informative

    The issue is that the holder of the loans have been passing it around like crabs in a frat house and no one knows whose faul... errr owns the loans.

    Chances are the borrowers weren't informed at every step, and even if they did communication claiming to own a loan and to pay someone else now is a classic scam.

  47. Re:Too bad. by andymadigan · · Score: 2

    Their investors' failure to keep proper documentation is a reflection of their business plan - buy debt and then service it as cheaply as you can get away with. As few people as possibly manning the phones, no allowances for people who can't pay - just pay collectors to harass debtors until they choose paying the loan over food and shelter. The collection agencies that break the law get the best results...

    They finally cheaped out to the point where they can't even prove they own the debt anymore. That's how the system works - if lenders do their due diligence before and after they lend the money, then lenders can make a tidy profit in exchange for lending their cash to those who can borrow responsibly. If they try to cheap out then they'll make loans to irresponsible borrowers while wrecking lives through extraordinarily strict collections until finally the lender screws up and loses it all.

    I've never had any trouble paying my debts, but any idiot can see the student loan system is broken.

    --
    The right to protest the State is more sacred than the State.
  48. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    You sound like a real cunt.

  49. Fucked by being responsible by grasshoppa · · Score: 2

    Once again, being a responsible adult who pays their bills leaves you fucked.

    I think I'm doing this adulting thing wrong.

    --
    Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
    1. Re:Fucked by being responsible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nothing in life is as simple as they tell you it is. Study hard, get a good job, work hard and you'll have a good life doesn't actually work in practice. You never get rich working for someone else and at this rate you'll never even get a decent retirement working for someone else. Later still you'll find working for someone else is the only way to avoid abject misery.

    2. Re:Fucked by being responsible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Responsibility comes in both ways.

    3. Re:Fucked by being responsible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think I'm doing this adulting thing wrong.

      I think you'll find it's spelled "adultery".

    4. Re:Fucked by being responsible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Agreed. Adultery always leaves you screwed.

  50. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The debt should only be financial debt. The premise of student debt is that a person makes an investment in something that over the long run is going to be a net benefit to them. If it isn't, it's probably a bad investment.

    If a person doesn't believe in their future enough to invest a little money, why should tax payers pick up the tab?

  51. I've got friends who've been paying on loans by rsilvergun · · Score: 1, Insightful

    for decades. Yeah, bad or unfinished degrees from people who's lives are a mess. A lot of them not all there in the head (I had a rough upbringing, so I know a lot of flakes). I can't get too worked up by this. The college graduates that make it more than pay for the ones that don't. And the folks whining about paying are the ones benefiting from their labor.

    I'm pretty sure the majority of people reading this would like to see free college. The question is when are we gonna put our votes where our mouths are?

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:I've got friends who've been paying on loans by 0123456 · · Score: 1, Insightful

      "I'm pretty sure the majority of people reading this would like to see free college."

      That's easy. You just need to find a lot of people willing to work for free to provide it.

      Oh, you meant that the people who work for a living should be taxed more to fund your four years of Social Justice Studies so you can get a job attacking them and trying to kill the business they work for?

      Good luck with that.

    2. Re:I've got friends who've been paying on loans by eWarz · · Score: 1

      We have free community college here in TN...and I assure you that nobody works for free here.

    3. Re:I've got friends who've been paying on loans by eWarz · · Score: 2

      Oh and for what it's worth, we have no income tax either.

    4. Re:I've got friends who've been paying on loans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Umm... somebody is paying for that free college. Sounds like everybody thinks somebody else is......

    5. Re:I've got friends who've been paying on loans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh and for what it's worth, we have no income tax either.

      Congrats on the taxing the poor proportionally more, can't have them thinking above their position.

    6. Re:I've got friends who've been paying on loans by jittles · · Score: 1

      Oh and for what it's worth, we have no income tax either.

      Congrats on the taxing the poor proportionally more, can't have them thinking above their position.

      That may not actually be the case. Florida has no income tax either. They're able to fund most of the money the state needs through hotel taxes and the rest comes from taxes on business and property. Florida has a homestead act that allows people to deduct a certain portion of their property tax on their home. That is based entirely on property tax assessment value. So, a poor person can deduct a large portion of their property tax while a person with a fancy house will pay through the nose.

  52. Student loan debt is different by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    the mortgage thing was a problem because the banks loaned more than the houses were worth and thus could not get their money back. Short of dying or dropping off the grid you're gonna pay those loans. Hell, if you live in the south they've got debtor's prisons for you.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:Student loan debt is different by Tablizer · · Score: 2

      the mortgage thing was a problem because the banks loaned more than the houses were worth and thus could not get their money back.

      They were "worth" sufficient during the bubble, but it was of course a bubble.

      Similarly, if the financial worth of college education dropped across the board due to recession, outsourcing, automation/AI, fraud, or a combo, the bottom could fall out on college loan repayments.

    2. Re:Student loan debt is different by david_thornley · · Score: 2

      I did some financial model implementation for a mortgage company. When we added the part about varying property values, it was about how fast they'd increase. Moreover, the models were based on cases where mortgages were never underwater, and there just wasn't the data to predict based on that.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  53. So how about... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So how about all those mortgages that got sold a half dozen times? I always paid mine....but the bank went under. For a while I paid to the treasury. Then I paid to some jokers I'd never heard of. Then different jokers I'd never heard of. I certainly never agreed to pay money to some random 6th party asshole company that likes to lose paperwork.

    Makes me want to challenge my mortgage really bad now.

  54. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How will the cost of loans be raised for future borrowers? Interest rates are what determines the cost. And the fact of the matter is that the lenders by law have to follow certain guidelines.

    The risk of this happening again will either lead to increased insurance premiums, or higher interest rates to cover self-insurance.

  55. Re:Too bad. by dwywit · · Score: 2

    Are you implying that it is (also) the borrower's responsibility to track sale and re-sale of the debt from corp A to corp B to corp C, and verify correct paperwork each time?

    Yes, there's a moral obligation to pay your debts, but if the contract between borrower and lender can't be proven, then there's nothing to enforce.

    If the borrower didn't enter the contract intending to find a loophole to skip repayment, but there's a failure on the other side to perform due diligence, then the lender can't really complain about having to write off the debt. It's the lender's problem, not the borrower's. Perhaps next time they purchase a debt from a bank/whatever, they'll remember to not cut corners and not do it on the cheap.

    --
    They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
  56. Re:Too bad. by blindseer · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "In a country that is supposedly as great as ours, all education should be free."

    Public education is free in the USA. It is also worthless.

    Public schools in places like DC and Chicago give high school diplomas to those that cannot even read at an 8th grade level.

    I'm sorry but the facts are facts. If you want an education then you have to pay for it.

    To public schools students are just boxes on a conveyor belt. They get paid based on how many boxes reach the end. They don't care if the boxes are full of knowledge, full of misinformation, or just plain empty, they still get paid the same regardless.

    Parents can complain but since they aren't paying the salaries the teachers are not accountable to them. In many cases the parents can't even "fire" the teachers by moving their children to another school because the government decided the only schools allowed are the public schools. Parents can't even home school because if you aren't sending your children to a "school" (as defined by the government) then you are obviously allowing your children to live in ignorance and therefore the children must be taken from you. For their own good of course.

    "Remove the financial burden from a people, and see what inspiration could really accomplish."

    You are correct. If freed from the tax burden of these failed schools then I can only imagine what we could accomplish.

    --
    I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
  57. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I got a Black Amazon Dot, which matches my vintage 2006 Black MacBook.

  58. Re:Too bad. by Solandri · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's the responsibility of both. I'm a fiscal conservative and all for personal responsibility, but I have no sympathy for the lenders here. These were private loans. It was the personal responsibility of the lender to make sure the paperwork was in order and properly recorded before they loaned out the money (or paid to acquire the loan). If they fail to do that, well I guess their money wasn't really important to them in the first place.

    Congrats to the borrowers - they got the equivalent to finding thousands or tens of thousands of dollars on the ground because the lender wasn't careful to make sure their pocket didn't have a hole in it.

    Yes, the ethical thing for the borrower to do is to pay back the loan. But if there's no clear documentation for the loan, the borrower can't be sure they're paying back the right person. They could pay someone $10,000, then next day some other collector calls saying they're the actual owner of the loan and the borrower needs to come up with another $10,000 to pay them. Faced with this possibility, the most ethical thing a borrower can do is "pay back" the loan by putting it into a savings account. And when someone can prove that they're really the actual one who is owed the money, the borrower can transfer the account over to them (minus interest).

  59. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Do you mean why should people put themselves in debt?

    Or maybe you mean why should people put others in debt?

    I've had college classrooms brimming with students who did not belong in college at all and they sure as hell were putting someone in debt. They weren't ensuring the future of anyone's country though. They were there because (a) college is what you do after high school and (b) someone else was ultimately picking up the tab.

  60. Re:Too bad. by buss_error · · Score: 1

    who've found a loophole

    Well, I say you owe me $300,000.00 for your student loan. So pay up!
    Remember, you can't discharge your debt to me in bankruptcy, and if you fail to pay me back at the 13%+ interest rate (which the government loaned me at 1%), then the government will pay me back 100% + 13% interest and my court costs and whatever legal fees I care to claim!

    Of course, you could always move to Scotland, where university is free for the asking. Or many other nations that do much the same. And remember, every single US state has a state funded university. You pay taxes for people to learn there. So why are the tuitions sky high? Last time I went to UT, the cost was pretty damn large, and the universities in Texas are funded by oil wells on state land. Well, they used to be before (political party redacted, do your own research) raided the funds for the general purse.

    I agree, just and legal debts should be binding, however, it's incumbent on the creditor to properly document and produce the contracts. In a sense, these debtors are saying "I don't owe you the money", and the "creditors" are saying "Trust me. You do." without offering the required proof. In that sense, it's not a loophole, it's simple justice. If I can't come to court and prove you owe me $300,000.00, then I should not be able to force you to pay me. Yet the law around student loans makes this inescapable (and credit card debt too, to a lesser extent.) One of my family had one of these companies try to dun them for a debt for going to school on a loan. Fortunately, they had proof they were out of the country during the time they said my family member was attending school.

    If you've heard the phrase "short end of the stick" then you may find this link helpful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    Also, I've make a bit of coin by buying people's credit card debit. You bet the check that I ensure I have complete documentation, and that I get a contract that puts me first in collecting it, and that they can't open new credit accounts without my approval. But whereas they were paying the credit card companies 22.9% interest, I'm only asking 5%. I don't buy just anyone's debt, I have to know them personally for at least 2 years. And I work with them if needed to help them detect the scams, come ons, bait and switch, and corrupt loans and things.

    --
    Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
  61. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I love how we always talk about personal responsibility and corporate responsibility, but it's always the little guy that gets hit by it.

    How is the little guy getting screwed when in this case, and in the case of mortgages, they're the ones robbing banks? If you borrow money, and do not pay it back, that is theft. Ethically, if you borrow money, you should pay it back even if the bank makes a mistake. You owe the money.

  62. Re:Too bad. by ljw1004 · · Score: 2

    This sounds like a bunch of debtors who've found a loophole to get out of their legitimate obligations. Sure, those who provided loans should have tracked things better, but that doesn't eliminate the ethical responsibility borrowers have to pay back what they agreed. The end result will only be to raise the cost of loans for future borrowers.

    Ethical responsibility? I agree there's a lack of ethical responsibility. It's on the part of the colleges and the loan companies that together have pushed college inflation at unfair and unjustified levels. If you're being beaten down by an unjust system over which you have no control, do you have an "ethical responsibility" to bow down to accept it? No, NEVER. You just survive as best you can, and if you play along with it then you do so only out of pragmatism. Signing the loan document -- "agreeing" in your words -- brings no more ethical obligations than signing a forced confession in which you agree that you committed crimes that you never did.

  63. It's more complex by goombah99 · · Score: 5, Informative

    well I think that's the problem. They don't have the paper.

    It's also not simply people lying to get out of loans, it's courts fed up with high pressure tactics to get payment on loans that were never made! Then when they are contested the loan companies dont' show up in court. It's the courts that are invaldating the loans for their own purposes not just because people are trying to weasle out

    from the article:
    “I tried to be honest,” Ms. Watson said of her court appearance. “I said, ‘Some of these loans I took out, and I’ll be responsible for them, but some I didn’t take.’”

    In her defense, Ms. Watson’s lawyer seized upon what he saw as the flaws in National Collegiate’s paperwork. Judge Eddie McShan of New York City’s Civil Court in the Bronx agreed and dismissed four lawsuits against Ms. Watson. The trusts “failed to establish the chain of title” on Ms. Watson’s loans, he wrote in one ruling.

    When the judge’s rulings wiped out $31,000 in debt, “it was such a relief,” Ms. Watson said. “You just feel this whole weight lifted. My mom started to cry.”

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    1. Re:It's more complex by batukhan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That'll be $35,000 in legal costs

    2. Re:It's more complex by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Plus taxes on $31000 of 'income'

    3. Re:It's more complex by Talderas · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I thought you might be joking so I did a brief look. I'm not a tax accountant so it's a bit indecipherable to me this early in the morning but the IRS most definitely wants you to report it as income on the year the debt is canceled. I just can't tell if this debt cancellation is an exception to canceled debt. This looks to be a fairly brutal tax hit. The minimum that you would owe the IRS should be $3578.75 for the $31,000 and that's assuming no income (besides the debt cancellation) and the standard deduction. You'd pay 10% on $9,275 and 15% on $17,675. It definitely doesn't qualify as an exception to gross income because the debt isn't being cancelled as part of bankruptcy.

      --
      "Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
    4. Re:It's more complex by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The court is saying the debt never existed, so it is not debt forgiveness. It should not be taxed unless the IRS is particularly cruel.

    5. Re:It's more complex by ElizabethGreene · · Score: 3, Informative

      well I think that's the problem. They don't have the paper.

      Here is an interesting data point. Last year John Oliver's Last week tonight tv show wanted to do a deep dive into collection agencies. They formed a collection agency and bought literally millions of dollars in medical debt. You would think that this debt would be handed off as thousands of pounds of paperwork or gigabytes of scanned documents.

      You'd be wrong. They bought an excel spreadsheet of names, addresses, social security numbers, etc.

      "Ask for proof of the debt" appears to be a valid strategy to check abuses in the collection industry.

    6. Re:It's more complex by Bob+the+Super+Hamste · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Having dealt with a debt collector that screwed the pooch bad I can understand the courts frustration. When you have a debt collector trying to collect a debt from you that is older than you are and the only match is on the first name something is very wrong with the system. That debt collector screwed up bad enough and I was meticulous enough in my documenting of the incident that my State Attorney General, State Department of Commerce, and Federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau all opened investigations into them. It didn't hurt that they broke several laws, did in in writing, and then continued to do so over the course of the correspondence, and then denied saying things that there was a provable paper trail for. Things like lie to someone, threaten to garnish their wages and seize assets, disclose information about the debt to an unauthorized 3rd party, calling multiple times a day after making initial contact that day, refusing to identify themselves on the phone, continuing to call after being contacted in writing informing them to no longer call, etc. It also didn't hurt that I can be a vindictive dick who will see things like this through.

      --
      Time to offend someone
    7. Re:It's more complex by rickb928 · · Score: 1

      And that is that.

      Of course, Tax Court isn't court...

      --
      deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
    8. Re:It's more complex by rickb928 · · Score: 1

      This is why I have the dubious honor of graduating from the University of Vermont but failing to pay my library and 'matriculation' fees. Easy solution, I just asked them to assure me, in writing, that they would indeed deliver my diploma upon payment of the $200-something fees.

      Crickets.

      At that time, in the 70s, I had never actually set foot in Vermont. But being a doctor was appealing.

      They gave up some time in the late 90s. Now I just get random cell calls for both similarly named deadbeats and someone who gave my number out. And agencies troll dialing similar numbers to catch those who either typoed it or just changed a digit. Do they suppose these scum will actually admit to being who they are when called? Really? Whatever happened to using Guido the Leg-Breaker for collections?

      Oh yeah -- It's Judge Guido now.

      --
      deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
    9. Re:It's more complex by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It should not be taxed unless the IRS is particularly cruel.

      So then you're saying it will be taxed.

    10. Re:It's more complex by goombah99 · · Score: 1

      She may have written off the interest payments on her taxes. If so she would now owe something on the revised tax base. However chances are good that she's in a tax bracket where she would not be paying tax anyhow. She'll just need to redo years worth of tax forms.

      --
      Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    11. Re:It's more complex by rogoshen1 · · Score: 1

      If only more people were like this, there'd be far fewer of these parasitical companies out there -- there is hopefully a special place in hell for debt collectors.

    12. Re:It's more complex by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 2

      The court is saying the debt never existed, so it is not debt forgiveness. It should not be taxed unless the IRS is particularly cruel.

      Which means that it will be taxed then.

    13. Re:It's more complex by Lord+Kano · · Score: 1

      When I was 18, I acquired a ridiculous long distance telephone bill.

      I made the calls and I owed the money but there was shady business going on.

      When I was away at college, we all got long distance calling cards for RCI via the school. These cards had a $100 limit on how much they would allow you to accumulate before they were shut off. I used mine for months, occasionally hitting the limit and getting shut off until I paid. After a few months, they allowed me to make $200 in calls before shutting me off. I paid. The last straw was when they allowd $570 in calls before shutting off the card. I didn't pay right away because I didn't want to keep racking up charges and I didn't trust myself to have the discipline to not use the card if it was available.

      The semester ended and I went home. I got a collection letter from Windham Associates, listing my debt and listing a $200+ collection fee. I called up immediately and expressed my desire to not pay $200+ to them in addition to the money that I rightfully owed. They wouldn't budge and they continued to call me until I agreed to send $50 per month until the debt was settled. Immediately after I hung up the phone, I felt outraged that they were successful at making me feel bullied into paying them money for doing virtually nothing. I went and dug out one of the old RCI bills and wrote a check to RCI for the full amount of the bill but NOT the collection fee.

      I avoided Windham Associates' calls until after I received the cancelled check in the mail. Once I had that check, I accepted one of their calls. Robert C. from Windham Associates had an edge to his voice because I hadn't sent them any money after agreeing that I would. I smiled big and wide as I explained to him that I had already settled the debt with RCI. I sent them a check for the full amount that I owed them, they cashed the check, I was holding the canceled check and I would be giving him nothing. I could almost hear his face hit the floor when he realized that the easy windfall he was expecting wasn't coming.

      I owed the money, it had always been my intention to pay it but that collection agency taught me a valuable lesson. Never pay what they initially ask you to pay. Always find a way to settle the debt for less.

      LK

      --
      "Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
    14. Re:It's more complex by Trickster+Paean · · Score: 2

      No, that isn't that. The U.S. Tax Court is most definitely a court. The U.S. Tax Court is a federal trial court, established under Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, whose jurisdiction largely extends to cases having to do with federal tax matters. Most of the cases it sees deal with the federal income tax, and it is the only forum in which a taxpayer may litigate tax matters with the U.S. Government without having paid the disputed tax in full.

    15. Re:It's more complex by Trickster+Paean · · Score: 2

      The real problem is whether the judicial case counts as a debt cancellation under the regulations.

      The easy case is when a creditor says, "Ok, you're not going to be able to pay this, your debt is cancelled." The creditor writes off the debt, and the debtor receives debt cancellation income. There's even a form, the 1099-C, Cancellation of Debt, that the creditor is supposed (and under some circumstances, is required) to send to you and the IRS if they cancel a debt.

      This is a harder case. The case was a failed proceeding to enforce the debt. This isn't like other judicial situations, where a court issues an order, like in bankruptcy, or a state receivership case, or even a probate case. So the creditor may still believe the debt is valid, but not judicially enforceable. In which case the debt isn't actually cancelled until they stop trying to collect. They can still send her letters asking her to pay the debt, after all - the only thing the court case does is prevent them from using the law to enforcing collection. And the student loan trust is probably required to send a 1099-C if the debt is cancelled, so until they decide to stop trying to collect on it, it isn't cancelled.

      And if it is cancelled, there are many ways cancelled debt can be exempted from taxation, the biggest one being insolvency. If you owe more than you own (have more debts than assets), you are insolvent, and the tax code allows you to exempt cancellation of debt income to the extent of your insolvency. So if she has assets of $10,000, and federal student loans of $50,000, even a $31,000 cancellation would be non-taxable because of the extent of her insolvency.

      Odds are, she won't have any tax issues because of this, though dealing with any cancellation of debt situation can be worrysome.

    16. Re:It's more complex by pnutjam · · Score: 1

      From experience, Judges don't like to hear that your pursuing things do to vindictiveness...
      :(

    17. Re:It's more complex by Goetterdaemmerung · · Score: 1

      The minimum that you would owe the IRS should be $3578.75 for the $31,000 and that's assuming no income (besides the debt cancellation) and the standard deduction. You'd pay 10% on $9,275 and 15% on $17,675. It definitely doesn't qualify as an exception to gross income because the debt isn't being cancelled as part of bankruptcy.

      The missing paperwork means there is no evidence there was ever a debt to be cancelled. For a fake/imaginary loan (which seems to be the case for at least some of these), why would there be a tax burden?

      Of course if the person admits the debt is real or has other paperwork showing it, the IRS may take that as evidence of a cancellation even if it can't be technically proven who owns the debt.

      The final determination is probably largely dependent on the quality of their tax preparation and quality of any IRS audit.

    18. Re:It's more complex by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, that isn't how it works. Basically, they can prove that it is a loan because they signed an MPN with someone. They also owe the money to someone, just not these people on this proof. The debt doesn't magically disappear.

      It's analogous to borrowing money from your parents, who sold the debt to your uncle, who sold it in a back alley, and then a while later a stranger named Steve knocks on your door and asks for his money. I'm pretty sure you would demand proof that you actually owed Steve the money. Just because you no longer know who you owe the money to doesn't mean that you don't owe it at all. It is perfectly reasonable for someone to else to come out of the woodwork with proper paperwork.

    19. Re:It's more complex by sexconker · · Score: 3, Informative

      If a collection agency (Windham Associates) was after you for the debt, that (in theory) means the original entity you owed money to (RCI) has sold the debt to them. In almost all cases, especially for low-value debts, the collection agency owns the debt. This keeps the original owner's hands clean legally for the bullshit collection practices used and distances them from PR nightmares.

      Assuming WA owned the debt, you sending a check to RCI after they sold the debt to WA doesn't count as you paying the debt. It counts as you giving away money to RCI and not paying your debt, which is owned by WA. WA probably decided at that point that you weren't worth the hassle. Your piece of documentation, however invalid, wasn't worth fighting in court over $200 and change. They likely got the amount they paid for your debt (less than $570) back from RCI.

      Alternatively, they knew they didn't have paperwork showing they owned the debt (because it's all intentionally sloppy, bought in bulk, etc.), just like this story is talking about. So your check would have been valid payment of the debt.

    20. Re:It's more complex by Lord+Kano · · Score: 1

      The FDCPA has been updated a time or two since then and there are other things that I left out for the sake of brevity but WA were boned. They knew they were boned and just took it on the chin because they were never going to see that money.

      LK

      --
      "Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
    21. Re:It's more complex by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      His what?

    22. Re:It's more complex by Bob+the+Super+Hamste · · Score: 2

      Well there was no judge involved in my matter with that debt collector. Had there been it would have been either them filing a lawsuit against me to collect a debt that was very clearly not mine (which they threatened to do), me filing a counter suit seeking punitive damages, or the results of me filing a criminal complaint against them. The only one of those where I would as a judge take issue woudl be counter suing for punititive damages but the others I would have been fully within my rights. Had they continued to press the issue I would have filed a criminal complaint as anyone should as at that point they were willfully attempting to defraud me. Had they hauled me into court I would have sought out any legal actions to punish that company as again they were clearly trying to defraud me. I also don't get vindictive at first as I do try to resolve things in a rational manner first but when the other party acts irrationally, illegally, immorally, or any combination then I will go full scorched earth on them.

      When they first called and refused to identify themselves I hung up. After doing that a few times then they robo call multiple times a day. Then I take a bunch of action to get it to stop including informing them in writing with things clearly time and date stamped and they continue to call. They then lie about stopping when there was a clear paper trail indicating otherwise. Then they willfully disclosed information about the debt (clearly not mine if they would have done their initial due diligence or looked at the information I provided) to an unauthorized 3rd party (it wasn't my debt so I was the unauthorized 3rd party). I respond that they are lying to me and point out every illegal action they have taken thus far. They respond by doubling down on their previous lies and threaten to freeze my assets, garnish my wages, have liens assessed, and sue me. Throughout this ordeal I had been the one going through proper channels, and documenting everything along the way and was the rational one. The scorched earth part was turning over all the evidence to the proper authorities and there was a lot of it and letting them decide what to do.

      At all points I was the rational actor doing the correct things attempting to resolve the issue but the debt collector wrongfully pressed on.
      It shouldn't have started as the only thing they had a match on was a first name, not birth date, not last name, not last 4 of SSN, not states I had lived in, only a first name match on a debt that was older than I am
      They could have stopped it with the first phone call but they refused to identify themselves and only asked for the person by first name
      They didn't have to robo call multiple times a day for several weeks
      They could have stopped it when receiving notification from the CFPB or Attorney General to not contact me by phone
      They could have stopped it when I had provided clear evidence through the CFPB that I was the wrong person
      They could have stopped it when I further proved it wasn't me and that they were now illegally attempting to collect a debt.
      They could have stopped it before they threatened to sue me
      The only thing that did stop it was when I told them that if action against me continued I would file a criminal complaint against them for attempting to defraud me and that I was going to be passing all of the information on this issue along to all federal and state bodies that deal with debt collectors.

      --
      Time to offend someone
    23. Re:It's more complex by BryanL · · Score: 1

      The problem is, there is no legal document that states how much debt there was to begin with, so there is no way to legally state how much debt was forgiven. That is actually the crux of the lawsuit- no legal paperwork that defines the financial terms (nor amount) of the loan contract.

    24. Re: It's more complex by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Trickster owes me a hundred million in unprovable debt. I Hereby forgive it. You now owe $15,000,000. In capital gains.

      Or maybe it doesn't work that way.

      As a creditor who is owed hundred of trillions in unprovable debt by collection agencies, I hope the courts reverse this trend.

      Right?

    25. Re:It's more complex by Zxern · · Score: 1

      Seems likely that at some point one owner was sloppy with their paper work and probably sold the debt multiple times. The people buying the debt were not careful with their paperwork either and so can't prove they actually own the debt.

      Of course these people aren't really losing much as they likely paid only pennies on the dollar for the debt in the first place.

    26. Re: It's more complex by Trickster+Paean · · Score: 2

      Trickster owes AC $100 mil in unprovable, but bona fide, debt. AC gives up, forgives $100 mil debt, writes off $100 mil loss on income taxes, issues Trickster 1099-C. Trickster receives 1099-C, has $100 mil in cancellation of debt income. Cancellation of debt income is ordinary income, not capital gains. Unless cancelled debt falls into certain exemptions, Trickster now has a $39,556,169.95 tax bill.

      There's a difference between a bona fide debt that you can't enforce because of a defect, say, in the chain of title or in the note itself, or because you waited too long to try to enforce the debt and it became subject to a statute of limitations, and unprovable debt because it isn't bona fide in the first place. If there is no bona fide debt, there's no debt to cancel, so no cancellation of debt income.

      And in many cases, because the person having their debt forgiven is insolvent already, they won't have any additional tax due to cancellation of debt. There are a number of exemptions for Cancellation of Debt income, it isn't something that most people have to deal with, and many who do have no additional tax burden.

      Read up on what the IRS itself says: Publication 4681, Canceled Debts, Foreclosures, Repossessions, and Abandonments (for Individuals).

      I think forgiving debt is the right thing to do, and can sometimes return more than continuing to pursue bad debts. If a business is in the business of loaning money, a profitable business can forgive uncollectible debt and have deduct that from its gross ordinary income. If it is profitable, and is paying corporate income taxes, each dollar in debt forgiveness will save $0.35 in taxes it won't have to pay. That's higher than what bad debts go for on the bad paper market.

      I've got no problem with these rulings: these loan trusts need to get their act together. They know the law much better than the people they are loaning money to, and have no excuse for not following it.

    27. Re:It's more complex by pnutjam · · Score: 1

      You missed out on an easy $1k.
      http://www.allconsumerlaw.com/fdcpa-damages.htm

    28. Re:It's more complex by lsatenstein · · Score: 1

      Were the loans never made, or the payments to those loans that were never made?

      --
      Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
    29. Re:It's more complex by Bob+the+Super+Hamste · · Score: 1

      Damn I actually wish that I had known about that as it would have been another thing to go after them with. Although I'm not sure if I would have been able to make any claims since they only threatened to sue but they did fuck up badly in a lot of other ways so maybe.

      --
      Time to offend someone
    30. Re:It's more complex by pnutjam · · Score: 1

      The hardest part is getting them to clearly identify themselves, but most of them are not too bright.

    31. Re:It's more complex by Bob+the+Super+Hamste · · Score: 1

      Sounds about right. They didn't want to disclose who they were when they called the first few times which to me means scam, and then after that it was always a robo call with no one on the line. When you look up the number and don't find anything on the internet and the calelr ID reports it as "Toll Free Caller" it sure smells like a scam. It was my state's Attorney General that identified them as a debt collector and not some scam operator like Rachel from card holder's services as that is what I thought I was initially reporting.

      I have dealt with some other debt collectors who were trying to collect a debt from the previous owner of my house and since they were likely the ones to first buy the debt they would always state that they are calling from XYZ debt collector and looking for Dumb Bitch Lady and when I tell them she hasn't lived there for 10+ years they hang up and never call back. I still don't get how calling a number that was never attached to Dumb Bitch Lady at a house where public records show Dumb Bitch Lady sold it well over 10 years ago might provide a way of contacting Dumb Bitch Lady. At least those ones don't keep calling but they shouldn't even be calling me in the first place if they actually did the proper due diligence.

      --
      Time to offend someone
  64. Here is a rule of thumb by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    For every 12 billion in student loans 5 billion is unpaid. It dont take a rocket scientist to see where this is headed.
    Most will die before paying when inflation really kicks in for a decade.

  65. Re:Too bad. by R3d+M3rcury · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Really, the borrower has no responsibility to track the loan, it's all on the lender?

    Yes, it is all on the lender.

    I make an agreement with you to pay you $1000 a month until my $100,000 debt is repaid. You sell that debt to someone else. You are responsible for making sure they have all the appropriate paperwork to take over that debt. If they sell it to someone else, they are responsible. And so on and so on and so on.

    If whoever ends up with it can't prove that they are the person who is supposed to be receiving my payments, that's their fault or whoever sold them the debt--not mine. I'm not just going to pay someone who walks up and says, "Hey, you owe me money!" Once someone can prove that they are the person who is supposed to be receiving my payments, I will gladly make them.

  66. Re:Too bad. by 0123456 · · Score: 1

    There have been a number of cases of mortgage debts being declared null and void because the bank didn't have the paperwork to prove any money was owed. So why not give it a try?

  67. Ooh, ooh, pick me teacher by rsilvergun · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I can answer that. It's because the media conglomerates that push the narrative of personal responsibility are owned by billionaires using that narrative to lower their tax burdens and claim a larger piece of the economic pie. Do I get a gold star?

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:Ooh, ooh, pick me teacher by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Do I get a gold star?" Only if you're Jewish...

  68. Re:Too bad. by 0123456 · · Score: 1

    Bingo. 'Education' is the second-biggest scam in America, after healthcare.

  69. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Part of a contract being a contract is the ability of both parties to agree upon what the contract entails and who the parties involved in said contract are. I'm with you all the way that people have an ethical responsibility to pay what they owe, but I also believe that it is also just as ethical to ensure that all parties are able to abide by the law and prove what is owed when asked. If the lender (or whoever they sold the rights to the debt to) can't prove they have the legal rights to the loan, the responsibility may not solely be theirs, but as the one whose money is at stake, they are the ones that have the most incentive to have the paperwork right.

    It's the same thing as defending a client you know is stone cold guilty of what they are accused from -- you're as much making sure the government proves its case as you are defending the client's interests at that point.

    So yeah, it sucks that some people are getting out of debt without paying off said debt or incurring a bankruptcy or severe credit hit on their record, but in industries as lucrative as lending, the "I didn't want to hire enough workers to keep up on paperwork" defense rings hollow.

  70. Re: Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There is no bigger scam than Jesus. Healthcare is a close second. Car sales people are third and education fills out the superfecta.

  71. For anyone facing collections... by GerryGilmore · · Score: 4, Interesting

    .... the magic words are "Show me the paperwork indicating that I owe you this debt.". Most collection agencies have ZERO paperwork showing that they are entitled to collect, but rely on intimidation to get people to comply. Fight back! Make them at least show the paperwork! Chances are, they don't have it.

    1. Re:For anyone facing collections... by DarthVain · · Score: 1

      Or any charges in fact. Another common one are gym memberships. I had one that after an initial sign up of a couple months, continued to charge me every month for almost a year. When I called them on it, they tried to say that it was all legit, and that they were entitled, and that I needed to write them a letter to cancel... After I reviewed the relevant legislation myself, I threatened to sue them, and pointed out while they owed me hundreds of dollars, the penalty for this particular violation of the legislation was up to 50,000$. They continued to make assertions that it was all in my contact, and that it was all my fault. I ask to see my contact, to which they refused. I then wrote a letter (delivered with a witness) demanding that they produce my contact within a week, or otherwise I was taking them to court. They of course had no contact and I got a check in the mail for the full amount. While this was peanuts compared to things like student loans, the principle is the same. They will just keep doing what they are doing unless they are really challenged on it, and they know that many/most will not, and just pay the bill.

    2. Re:For anyone facing collections... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Search and replace [contact -> contract] and your post makes some sense. What I can't understand is how you made the same error so many times in one paragraph. If you were calling up this gym and demanding "contact" it is no wonder they refused to comply.

    3. Re:For anyone facing collections... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yep. I have 180k in loans that cannot be collected due to lost paperwork. Its laughable how disorganized these people are.

    4. Re:For anyone facing collections... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      True

      But, then they sell it to another agency and you have 30 days to make THEM prove. Repeat until you are unable to reply in time....

      They should not be able to sell off collections they know are bad :/

  72. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Problem is that a lot of debt is thrown at these students.

    I remember needing to sign something saying I was rejecting the offered "financial aid" package for my kids when they started at a state university. Failure to sign the rejection would have started the loan paperwork automatically.

    While I would guess that this paperwork needs my signature eventually, it is easy to imagine some overworked grunt skipping that cumbersome step and just logging the loan.

    University wins because they get the money. Bank wins because they get a loan to sell. Student doesn't get a tuition bill for that year and doesn't think twice until after graduation when the first loan payment is requested.

    It was to easy for everybody.....

  73. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This sounds like a bunch of debtors who've found a loophole to get out of their legitimate obligations. Sure, those who provided loans should have tracked things better, but that doesn't eliminate the ethical responsibility borrowers have to pay back what they agreed.

    Sow, how about you pay me the $10000 you loaned? Stop being a deadbeat who raises the costs for the others.

    You won't? Why would I then pay money for some random corporation that I've never heard of just because they claim that they owe me money?

  74. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ethics goes both ways.
    Also does taking advantage of whichever legal loopholes there are.

    About a decade ago I tool a 2-year loan from a bank, it was somewhere around 2000 dollars. I paid my monthly bills diligently except for one when I was traveling abroad for a month, and I had notified the bank I would be late that one month. They said "fine, no worries, we'll save this info in your account" - mind you it was a phone conversation.
    Time passes and I keep paying my bills until the last one. Couple months go by, I receive a stern letter from the bank telling me I owe them the equivalent of 4 dollars in late fees, and that they registered me as an offender to the Credit Office. That means, around here, that you're effectively unable to take another loan for 7 years because you have "bad credit".

    So there's your ethics right there. They fucked me over because they were sloppy or lying through their teeth. And now I hear some banks or financial institutes had it coming because they were sloppy handling paperwork. Sorry if I don't feel pity for them.

  75. Re:Too bad. by serviscope_minor · · Score: 4, Informative

    Really, the borrower has no responsibility to track the loan, it's all on the lender?

    Yep. Otherwise, I as the supposed lender can demand that you start repaying that 500k loan I claim that you took out and according to you, the onus is on you to prove that there never was a loan.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  76. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Student loans are guaranteed by the government. None of these lenders lost any money, cupcake.

  77. Re:Too bad. by zijus · · Score: 2

    ...ethical responsibility to pay the loan back, but not the owner of the loan's responsibility to actually track what people owe them? Seems to me that ethically...

    Debt: The First 5000 Years is a stimulating read, bringing in quite different point of views on debt, loan, responsibility, ethicality and so on. Quite radical. Arguable. Not a short read. Cut and paste from WP :

    Debt: The First 5,000 Years is a book by anthropologist David Graeber published in 2011. It explores the historical relationship of debt with social institutions such as barter, marriage, friendship, slavery, law, religion, war and government; in short, much of the fabric of human life in society. It draws on the history and anthropology of a number of civilizations, large and small, from the first known records of debt from Sumer in 3500 BC until the present.

    A major argument of the book is that the imprecise, informal, community-building indebtedness of "human economies" is only replaced by mathematically precise, firmly enforced debts through the introduction of violence, usually state-sponsored violence in some form of military or police.

    A second major argument of the book is that, contrary to standard accounts of the history of money, debt is likely the oldest means of trade, with cash and barter transactions being later developments. Debt, the book argues, has typically retained its primacy, with cash and barter usually limited to situations of low trust involving strangers or those not considered credit-worthy.

    Graeber shows how the second argument follows from the first; that, in his words, "markets are founded and usually maintained by systematic state violence," though he goes on to show how "in the absence of such violence, they (...) can even come to be seen as the very basis of freedom and autonomy."

    Z.

  78. Re:Too bad. by thegarbz · · Score: 1

    legitimate obligations

    Ha that's a laugh coming from you. You still owe me $2500. Why haven't you paid me yet. I already told you that you owe it to me. Stop trying to find a loophole out of your "legitimate obligations".

  79. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They could pay someone $10,000, then next day some other collector calls saying they're the actual owner of the loan and the borrower needs to come up with another $10,000 to pay them.

    This sort of happened to me once a long time ago. I had an automatic payment set up for a car loan because I was out of the country a lot.
    Company A sold my loan to Company B (which as you probably know can and is done all the time). Of course, the first I heard from Company B was that I was late on my payments for two months.

    Straightening that out seemed like it wouldn't be too difficult, but oh yes it was. I was on the phone with both companies for hours and hours and that was AFTER I paid for three months worth of car payments with Company B.

  80. Another fine example by brokie · · Score: 0

    This is why Trump won.

  81. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > And why should education put people in debt?

    Because otherwise the parasite economy would starve to death. C'mon, have some compassion with them little bloodsuckers!

  82. Re:Too bad. by volodymyrbiryuk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Like the "real" people who own millons in offshore accounts paying their (tax) debt? These students learned from the best, found a loophole and got away with it. End of story.

    --
    sudo rm -r -f --no-preserve-root /
  83. Re:Too bad. by houghi · · Score: 1

    Good that I find you here. We still need back the 10.350,12USD you borrowed. I assume that you use an alias and not your real name to get out of your legitimate obligations. Pay up as you have the ethical responsibility to do so.

    --
    Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  84. Re:Too bad. by jabuzz · · Score: 1

    On the other hand you could have just set up a standing order for the payment. I am travelling so can't make a scheduled known payment is the lamest excuse I have ever heard of.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    Though apparently in the third world that is the USA you have a system where the bank automatically mails a cheque to the specified payee (like WTF, really!!!!!!!!!). Either way travelling is no excuse for not making scheduled payments. For more than the last decade I have been able to go online with my bank and setup a scheduled one of payment some time in the future. Never really tried to see how far in advance you can go, but it is a couple of months at least.

  85. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    unless they didn't borrow money to begin with - which is the argument by the woman referenced.

  86. Re:Too bad. by DarkOx · · Score: 1

    Because they made an agreement! Even if we decided to make all public colleges free tomorrow it would not change the obligation of people with existing loans to pay them!

    They wanted to borrow money to get something they wanted at the time and agreed to pay it back with interest. They were lent the money. They need to repay the money.

    --
    Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
  87. I don't do social media by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Stupid Americans still bank at Wells Fargo/Wachovia, at least those that are ignorant have some kind of excuse. Anyone crying left and right here is a true moron, and part of the larger problem.

  88. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yes, the ethical thing for the borrower to do is to pay back the loan.

    No the ethical thing to do is for the borrower to take advantage of the flaws in the system to get ahead. That is the point of capitalism you moron, taking an advantage when it presents it self.

    What are you a fucking communist or something?

  89. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm sorry but the facts are facts. If you want an education then you have to pay for it.

    And this ladies and gentlemen is why Americans are all ignorant dumbasses. America needs H1Bs because they outsourced thinking years ago.

  90. SJWs on the Bench by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The fact that the borrower paid the loan for at least some time is an indication that the borrowed acknowledges owing the debt. Generally, loans entered in good faith are considered valid debt when the borrower makes at least some regular payment on them.

    I think these are being dismissed more because of the political bent of certain judicial appointees rather than studious interpretation of the Law. The Law is pretty clear that payment on a debt absent a dispute is tacit acceptance of validity for that debt.

    1. Re:SJWs on the Bench by Todd+Knarr · · Score: 1

      And yet the creditors here would cheerfully argue (and have argued) that contracts entered into in good faith aren't enforceable because they were verbal and the debtor can't show any proof they existed, when that contract consisted of the creditor's rep giving assurances to the debtor about leniency. You and they can't have it both ways. The big financial institutions have been at the forefront of advocating that if you can't produce a signed written agreement then it didn't happen and isn't legally enforceable, well the individual debtor's equally entitled to demand the same standard apply when it goes the other direction.

  91. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bingo. 'Education' is the second-biggest scam in America, after healthcare.

    Then prisons. America needs more prisons because that is the only place the average Joe will be able to get a job. If you get sick in America and don't have healthcare you should just do everyone a favor and die and stop being a bother to everyone.

  92. Passing it around like crabs in a frat house... by Pollux · · Score: 1

    Couldn't have said it better myself.

    Graduated in '03. Took out both Stafford loans and private loans to pay for college. My private loans were sold once, and my Stafford loans were sold twice. Paid it all off completely, the private loans five years ago and the Stafford loans this year, but it seemed silly to me at the time how frequently my debt was being tossed around between lenders.

    Personally, I'm concerned, because we've seen this before. I believe financial institutions are packaging student loan debts into asset-backed securities and selling them to the highest bidder. To the buyer, it's no longer a set of loans, but a financial instrument of cash flow. Buy a packaged set of loans for x dollars promising a cash flow of y dollars over z years. We saw the same thing happen with home loans during the 2008 recession.

  93. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nice strawman you've got there. Whether education should put people in debt is neither here nor there in relation to this discussion. Fact is they took out loans, agreed to pay them back at a specified interest rate and are now using a technicality to get out of it. Don't you hate it when a company hits you with a fee based on a technicality? Why is it any better when you do it to them? Two wrongs don't make a right, etc, etc, etc.

  94. blatent TOS violation in pursuit of TROLLOLOLISM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I submitted this story with my cdreimer account but I have many slashdot account so I can moderate/publish myself here is the account where I do most posting: https://slashdot.org/~creimer -cdreimer

    Great. I can't tell it this really is creimer or some troll impersonating his sockpuppet account.

    Any sufficiently advanced troll is indistinguishable from genuine stupidity. -- Arthur C Clarke

  95. Re:What about the fake bills for stuff web service by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The American Medical Association (AMA) of all groups actually do this. They send blank, unlabelled envelopes to doctors' offices with notices in there and legitimate looking bills saying that dues are due or overdue. The problem is that the doctor in question is consciously not part of the AMA, never has been, and doesn't want to be. They bet on the idea that a significant number of these will get to incompetent office staff that just pay it.

  96. Re:Too bad. by UnknowingFool · · Score: 1

    I've neither said nor implied any such thing. I've just said people are ethically bound to pay their debts, and they should be just as responsible for knowing what those debts are as the lenders.

    Iin the exact article one of the complaints of a borrower was that the lender was trying to make her pay for loans she claims she never made. According to her there were loans to a college she never attended. The problem with your last sentence is no, it is not the responsibility of the borrower to prove the lender's claim. It is the responsibility of the party bringing the claim in the eyes of the law to substantiate it.

    Did you even read my last comment? How am I to know that XYZ Corp bought out my student loan. I wasn't there for the sale. I didn't see the negotiation or the transaction. How do I know ABC Corp who is also asking me for the money didn't actually buy it? I don't. There are a lot of scammers out there. Considering that the lender in the article has already been accused of trying to levy bogus loans, there is a reasonable question as to where the lender owns the debt. They have to prove it in court.

    Law has nothing to do with it.

    Considering that the article has to do with debts, contracts, ownership, and lawsuits, I can't see how you can say that.

    --
    Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
  97. Re:Too bad. by Qzukk · · Score: 1

    live up to a contract

    It takes two to tango. Maybe the company shouldn't have signed a contract it didn't understand required it to keep records of who owed how much to whom.

    --
    If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
  98. Re:Too bad. by UnknowingFool · · Score: 1

    Er what insurance premiums? How can lenders making bad loans or keeping bad paperwork raise insurance rates in anyway. Especially for student loans.

    --
    Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
  99. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    One year of our military budget could end hunger, poverty, medical care, the educational crises in this country.

    I'm curious, do you actually believe that? Seriously? Because you're aware that the amount of money the US spends on social programs per year is larger than our entire defense budget, right? And you're also aware that the defense budget covers a lot more than just military, right? Like all that cool research that DARPA does, and the GPS system, that's all defense budget. One year of our military budget put in to social programs would probably increase the budget for social programs by about 50% for one year, making small improvements and then things would go back to the way they were the year before.

  100. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Screw ethics. I'd do terrible shit for $100, let alone $10,000

  101. Re:Too bad. by jeff4747 · · Score: 1

    It's interesting that it has become imperative for individuals to "live up to a contract", yet corporations face no such burden.

    If I declare bankruptcy, I'm punished for 10 years via a bad credit report.

    A corporation declares bankruptcy and it has virtually no effect. Heck, just transfer all the assets to another corporation and dissolve the original corporation. Ta-da! Freedom from contractual obligations and you are celebrated as a financial genius.

  102. Re:Too bad. by jeff4747 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    the parents can't even "fire" the teachers by moving their children to another school because the government decided the only schools allowed are the public schools.

    Citation required.

    Parents can't even home school because if you aren't sending your children to a "school"

    Citation required.

    I'm sorry but the facts are facts. If you want an education then you have to pay for it.

    Ditto. If you want public schools that provide an education, then you have to pay for it. So the next time someone tells you "it's the teacher's fault!!!!", ask them why we pay teachers so little (thus getting reducing teacher quality), and why they keep insisting on further cuts to education budgets.

  103. The paperwork trail by sarbonn · · Score: 1

    I've often wondered how these collection agencies are capable of proving that they own the debt. I know that a lot of these companies buy tons of these debts for pennies on the dollar, and my understanding is that they get this information as lists of debt on spreadsheets. How is that proof? Or are they getting the actual "original" documents that were signed those decades ago? I know that when they contact you, they act all tough and want immediate payment, but getting them to "prove it" to you usually ends up in a hang up and then a repeat of the phone calls a week or so later. To be honest, I've never understood the legal boundaries on either side of this situation, other than the borrower finally giving in and "doing the right thing". Fortunately, I'm not in such a circumstance right now, but my curiosity has never been sated on this issue.

    --
    Sarbonn's blog: http://www.sarbonn.com/blog
    1. Re:The paperwork trail by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Collection agencies can make money by not bothering with the documentation. They'll lose if the matter ever gets to court, of course, but they'll lose if they're just not paid, which is another likely outcome. They make money by buying debt cheap.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    2. Re:The paperwork trail by nephilimsd · · Score: 1

      The company that I work for recently sold a batch of debt that had seen no movement in 12+ months. As a part of the sale, we had to provide electronic copies of the master promissory note, the contract that our customers signed saying they would pay the debt and a letter for each customer that we were selling stating the amount of debt we were selling and who the buyer was. All of the documents are stored in a database as XML, so extraction was relatively easy, but no, an Excel spreadsheet with names, phone numbers, and debt amounts is insufficient if you are selling debt to a credible collection agency.

    3. Re:The paperwork trail by s.t.a.l.k.e.r._loner · · Score: 1

      Short answer: They aren't capable in most cases.

      Long answer: The original creditor can usually be expected to be able to produce proper documentation of a loan or other debt, the contract with your signature, monthly invoices, and an ongoing record of payments made (if any). A court will always expect them to have all of this: no contract, no proof, no debt. When they do have it, a lawsuit against you will usually be little more than a formality: the creditor will win the judgment swiftly, as they should.

      If someone says you owe them money and you start making payments on it, that's good enough for a court that you admit you owe it. If any contract is objectionable but you go ahead and start fulfilling your side of the agreement, you've just accepted the contract as written. Similarly, if a debt is past the statute of limitations but you make a payment on it, the clock restarts and the debt is again valid and actionable in court.

      When one defaults on a payment owed, the typical process (here in the United States) is that a notice gets sent out once a month. If no payment is forthcoming, the account gets kicked to a collection department after 60 or 90 days. Big businesses often have an internal collections department, but usually this is outsourced to a collection agency that handles further notices and phone calls for a fee. Eventually, defaulted accounts that are uncollected for however many months are bounced back to the original creditor. These are unlikely to be recoverable (either due to chronic insolvency, unreachable debtors, inadequate/lost documentation, etc). The creditors know that if documentation is deficient they wouldn't win a lawsuit, or if the documentation is intact but the debtor has no assets to seize, so they either write the debts off or sell them in huge batches to "junk debt" collectors for pennies on the dollar so they at least recover something.

      This is where those spreadsheet lists come in. Sometimes the batches might contain some documentation, rarely all documentation, but typically they do not contain anything a diligent court would accept. Documentation gets partially or totally lost, corrupted, or destroyed all the time. Junk debt collectors don't care, as it's not usually needed. They choke local courts each year with hundreds of thousands of lawsuits alleging debts owed. They get away with this because most people never even bother to file a response to the complaint, and then a motion for summary judgment is granted by default. Then they motion for garnishment, and win. Hell, I've even seen cases where people respond with a letter asking the court for leniency, but that's an admission that they owe the debt: a motion for summary judgment follows immediately after. There have been accusations that people are never even properly served with lawsuit papers and never know about it until the lawsuit is lost, and that certainly happens sometimes. Most of the junk debt isn't even valid, or was already paid off but the documentation doesn't show this, or it's so old that it's past the statute of limitations and can't be collected by court order, etc.

      Many collection agents (which has one of the highest turnover rates of any job in the country, hence incompetent and poorly-trained staff) threaten, insult, harass, call out of permissible hours, call you at work, etc. The biggest thing is that they LIE, particularly about being able to garnish your wages when a court has not already issued a judgment, or stating that they can sue you when the debt is past the statute of limitations. All of these actions are violations of the Federal Debt Collection Practices Act. The FDCPA is actually quite good, and lays out all the ground rules for what debt collectors are and are not permitted to do. When you can pinch them on any one of these FDCPA violations, it's an automatic $1,000 fine plus attorney fees, so it's excellent leverage. Call recorder apps are a must, provided you're in a state where call recording is legal

      A handful of people challenge the suits in co

  104. Re:blatent TOS violation in pursuit of TROLLOLOLIS by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    Great. I can't tell it this really is creimer or some troll impersonating his sockpuppet account.

    I don't post AC.

  105. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Higher default risk leads to higher interest rate. I played with p2p lending for a while. It's been a good learning experience for me. I use to lend to only A or AA rated people (excellent 705+ credit, good income, etc) for 5~6% interest rate. When I went to full automation, it sometimes chose C or D rated borrowers. Although interest rate was 20+% for those people, because default rate was so high, I ended up getting less return than A/AA people in the end.
    So, if private lender sees higher risk, they'll adjust their interest rate accordingly. If government make the loan dischargeable by bankruptcy like other people wanted, they'll start to see 20-30% interest rate like credit card.

  106. I detect a massive irony orebody by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

    Finance / banking is one of those lines of business that requires a degree of all employees for no particular reason. An MBA or other job-specific cert applies only to the higher positions; for everyone else, it's just a matter of policy that you have something.

    So if you overpaid at Evergreen College for that genderqueer theory masters that by now you have found opens no employment doors, you will end up working for a bank or collection agency, shuffling that very same legacy paperwork incompetently enough to let large numbers of your fellow liberal arts slackers off the hook for their student loans.

  107. Re:Too bad. by UnknowingFool · · Score: 1

    Again, how does it lead to higher insurance premiums? A lender can charge higher interest for riskier borrowers but what does insurance have to do with it?

    --
    Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
  108. Re:blatent TOS violation in pursuit of TROLLOLOLIS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I bet, you have so many accounts to post from; you can even moderate yourself up and vote yourself up in the firehose. Slashdot allows that to make sure they are politically correct and don't get sued for discrimination against a retard.

  109. Re:Too bad. by pak9rabid · · Score: 1

    How will the cost of loans be raised for future borrowers? Interest rates are what determines the cost.

    Have you never had a mortgage before? Closing costs alone can total upwards of $5,000, which isn't exactly a drop in the bucket.

  110. Re:Too bad. by slashrio · · Score: 1

    Did you apply for a loan using a gun?
    If somebody can not show you the papers proving you owe them anything, especially if you didn't borrow anything from them, then why should you pay?
    It has nothing to do with being 'legitimate' or not.

    --
    "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
  111. Re:Too bad. by UnknowingFool · · Score: 1

    Personally my mortgage was bought and sold twice in two months right after I took it out. It was a mess trying to figure out who I should pay. One month it was this company. So I had to set them up in my bank accounts. Next month I was informed that they sold it so I had to do the same thing over again. One problem was that actually sold it within the same month but I didn't get notified until the next month. That was a little bit of stress within getting a new mortgage to figuring who to pay and that the last payment made it to the right people.

    --
    Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
  112. Re:blatent TOS violation in pursuit of TROLLOLOLIS by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    I bet, you have so many accounts to post from; you can even moderate yourself up and vote yourself up in the firehose.

    I post comments from creimer, submit stories from cdreimer. I don't moderate but I do up/down vote in firehouse. The other four user accounts were set up with disposable email addresses and the login info tossed into the bit bucket.

    Slashdot allows that to make sure they are politically correct and don't get sued for discrimination against a copyright holder.

    FTFY

  113. Re:Too bad. by slashrio · · Score: 1

    There you go!
    Transfer yourself to a corporation, let that corporation borrow the money for your study, and have fun.
    Can't pay back? Your corporation goes bankrupt and you just transfer yourself to another one.

    --
    "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
  114. Re:Too bad. by slashrio · · Score: 1

    You forgot to mention that they agreed to pay the loan back to the original borrower.
    That original borrower got paid for the loan by some 'benevolent' organization, and now you're free.
    Later this 'benevolent' institution got remorse but can't prove you owe them anything.
    End of story.
    Technicality... my ass.

    --
    "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
  115. Yes, Yes I do by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    because you benefit from the work they do. That's what a civilization is. We all work together. Did you build your PC out of matchsticks on your Grandfather's deathbed? Did you invent the microprocessor? No? Then bugger off with your stupid right wing think tank created talking point.

    You, me and everyone reading this owe those kids an education because our success was built on the backs of the last gen and our retirement will be built on the backs of the next gen. That's how this works. Anything else is just exploiting people for gain. You know this. Which is why you trot out trigger words like "Social Justice" instead of facing the real issues head on.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:Yes, Yes I do by penandpaper · · Score: 1

      If you expect tax payers to pay for college then it should be no surprise when tax payers care about what type of education they are paying for.

  116. Re:blatent TOS violation in pursuit of TROLLOLOLIS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I post comments from creimer, submit stories from cdreimer.

    No you don't, you sociopathic liar. There wasn't even a "cdreimer" signed up here until a few months ago; until then you submitted PLENTY under creimer. More lies from our favorite sack of potatoes on stilts.

    against a copyright holder.

    You can't copyright a name. Go claim your "copyright" from GitHub, you fat fraud.

    https://github.com/creimer

    As a content creator, you must protect your copyright or risk losing it, remember? Funny how much effort you put into Slashdot, which "doesn't matter in the real world"...

  117. Re:Too bad. by slashrio · · Score: 1

    Bullshit.
    The borrower owned the original loaner money, who was made whole for the same by a benevolent somebody else who freed you from your debt.
    I would say: "Thank You!"

    The real problem is that people need to get in debt in order to get an education, with which they can earn money they need to pay their taxes with, which will be collected by the bankster criminals that own the 'Federal' 'Reserve' 'Bank' (three lies in quotes) which borrowed all banknotes and digital money in circulation to the government.
    It's the Federal Government that should have printed the money that paid for the free education which then would have elevated the country.

    --
    "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
  118. Re:Too bad. by slashrio · · Score: 1

    Of course, but to whom?

    --
    "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
  119. Re:Too bad. by slashrio · · Score: 1

    Would you like to be the one that found out he's the exception, and now has to pay back his loan twice?

    --
    "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
  120. Ideology and voting tendencies by sjbe · · Score: 1

    eah, this is one of the more baffling aspects of modern American culture, especially on the right. They distrust every single thing about the government, but are happy to believe every single thing out of the mouths of large corporations and throw all their trust behind them.

    Depends on which American you are talking to. If it's someone on the political left they tend to believe the government and not the companies. Political right is the reverse. Many exceptions of course on both sides of the aisle. Americans often like simple sound bite ideology that doesn't require them to think too hard especially when there is a chance they are wrong.

    What makes this even less understandable is that one of those entities has a clear motive for lying to you quite a lot of the time, and the other doesn't... and many people will still put their trust behind the party that has clear motive to be dishonest every time.

    That's because they tend to put their faith in whichever party best services their pre-existing confirmation bias. Whether what the party says is true or logical or sensible seems to play little role in their decision making. If they think government = evil then they will probably vote reliably republican even if that actually goes against their own self interest. Basically about 40% of the population will vote democrat no matter what and 40% will vote republican no matter what. It's not logical but that's what happens.

  121. Re:blatent TOS violation in pursuit of TROLLOLOLIS by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    You can't copyright a name. Go claim your "copyright" from GitHub, you fat fraud.

    https://github.com/creimer

    I don't publish content under my legal name because my legal name isn't unique.

    As a content creator, you must protect your copyright or risk losing it, remember?

    Yes, C.D. Reimer. Not creimer of Germany, not creimer of Women.

  122. Re:Too bad. by UnknowingFool · · Score: 1

    Have you never had a mortgage before? Closing costs alone can total upwards of $5,000, which isn't exactly a drop in the bucket.

    Yes I have a mortgage. Lenders can't just tack on closing costs without telling you what they are. Also you can negotiate the costs. The seller and I split the cost. The seller didn't raise the price.

    Mortgage closing costs

    When you are buying a home you generally pay all of the costs associated with that transaction. However, depending on the contract or State law, the seller may end up paying for some of these costs. . .

    Again how was the loan cost raised up because of bad purchases the lender made? A lender in question normally assesses each loan based on the particular case. In this story particularly, the supposed current owner of the debt wasn't the original lender but someone who later bought the debt. Some of these companies never made a loan themselves; they buy them as investments. How can they enforce higher costs on those that they bought the loans from?

    --
    Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
  123. Re:blatent TOS violation in pursuit of TROLLOLOLIS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Go ahead and try to sign up variations of the name "creimer". Either Slashdot took pity on this medical moron, or he actually signed up dozens of variations of cdreimer. c.d.reimer, cd.reimer, cdreimer. , .c.reimer. , etc, are all taken. They weren't just a few months ago.

    Why this obtuse uneducated mass of adipose gets special treatment is a mystery. Plus he's a complete and accomplished liar. Look how he claimed to "submit stories from cdreimer"... What a tool.

    https://slashdot.org/~creimer/submissions

    Look, the evidence is right there! Check it before Slashdot cleans up yet another creimess.

  124. Re:blatent TOS violation in pursuit of TROLLOLOLIS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    An author of a copyrighted work can use a pseudonym or pen name. A work is pseudonymous if the author is identified on copies or phonorecords of the work by a fictitious name. Nicknames and other diminutive forms of legal names are not considered fictitious. Copyright does not protect pseudonyms or other names.

    (source)

    Too bad your pen name is not a copyrightable entity. Further, too bad that your pseudonym isn't really a pseudonym at all, since it is a diminutive form of your legal name (C. D. are your initials, Reimer is your last name - not particularly inventive, n'est-ce pas?), and thus not considered fictitious.

    Your WORK is copyrightable, amateurish and idiotic as it may be. Your NAME is not copyrightable, nor is it a pseudonym. These standards are published by the US Copyright Office - please show your work and explain how you arrive at your claims of "copyright" infringement?

    Your ONLY legitimate claim was for violation of Slashdot's TOS. You have NO copyright claim against someone else using the name 'cdreimer' unless they are actually posting material on Slashdot for which you hold the copyrights, and which are not covered by fair use exceptions.

    I don't expect you to understand this, but I'm going to keep calling out these bullshit copyright claims whenever I see you make them. Maybe someday, something about this topic will sink into that thick bony sphere you call a skull. Until then, I'll amuse myself by pointing out how ass-backwards WRONG you are, repeatedly.

  125. Debt cancellation *is* income by Solandri · · Score: 1

    2007 - You borrow $31k to go to school. You don't pay income taxes on it because you didn't make the money, you borrowed it. You will pay income taxes on it when you earn the $31k that you use to pay back the loan.

    2017 - Creditor cancels the debt. You no longer have to pay it back. The money you received in 2007 now becomes income (just like winning the lottery) instead of a loan, and you owe taxes on it. The IRS is actually being generous by assessing taxes on it in 2017, instead of assessing it back in 2007 when you actually received the money.

    Likewise from the lenders side:

    2007 - You lend $31k to someone. You already paid income taxes on it because you earned that money previously and it was sitting in your bank account.

    2017 - You cancel the debt. Since the money effectively vanished from your account, you shouldn't have had to have paid taxes on it when you earned it. Consequently, the IRS allows you to take a tax deduction for the loss, thereby canceling out the taxes you paid for the money when you first made it. The tax liability for the money is instead shifted over to the person who now has the money - the borrower whose debt was forgiven.

    1. Re:Debt cancellation *is* income by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So naive.

      "Likewise from the lenders side:

      2007 - You lend $31k to someone. You already paid income taxes on it because you earned that money previously and it was sitting in your bank account."

      NO, as the money lender, you only have 10% of the loan amount, the rest is created by the federal reserve out of thin air to service the loan.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional-reserve_banking

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9IH-XKQpOI

  126. Treachery Likely by JimSadler · · Score: 1

    We just went through this with missing mortgage paper work. In the case at hand the mortgage holder had zero evidence of owning the mortgage other than it was listed in their computer. In fact the mortgage may not have been owned by the claimant at all. No proof was available. But the justice system was aware that the problem was so common that the national economy could take too big a hit if outfits like Fannie Mae could not prove ownership of mortgages they claimed to own. The state courts wiggled out of the situation by denying hearing cases completely. therefore Fannie Mae owns what they claim they own. Now the question will quickly become how will banks survive if they can not collect the money they supposedly are due to collect. If all of this sounds absurd to you keep in mind one simple fact that has come to light. Some people lost their homes who never ever had a mortgage in the first place. They lost the homes by institutions making phony claims of ownership. There have even been cases of outsiders sneaking files into public records in order to cause legal hell for judges who punished them or other motives for revenge. The process for removing a false file can be long, expensive and have a dubious resolution. People deliberately take jobs in which they have access to public files such as working for a security service or cleaning service and then do their worst after hours when no one sees what goes on. Rather than using a computer it is often a matter of opening a file cabinet and inserting false documents.

  127. Re:blatent TOS violation in pursuit of TROLLOLOLIS by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    C. D. are your initials, Reimer is your last name - not particularly inventive, n'est-ce pas?

    My father called me Christopher Dale (think Christopher Robin from Winnie the Pooh, who was the author's son). C.D. is also a gender-neutral name. Since I find myself working with female editors and creating short stories with lead female characters, a gender-neutral name helps in attracting female readers.

    Your ONLY legitimate claim was for violation of Slashdot's TOS.

    Fake accounts created for the expressed purpose of harassing another user qualifies as a TOS violation.

  128. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They made an agreement? Then prove they made the agreement. Prove further that the entity seeking to collect is the entity that is actually entitled to collect.

    That was the whole point of the fucking article. They aren't skipping out - they literally do not know WHO HOLDS THEIR DEBT anymore, and the people CLAIMING they do can't prove it. This is what happens when debt gets sold and shipped around all the time. I borrowed money from Foo, but Foo sold it to Bar, who sold it to Baz who sold it to Quatloo who now is claiming that I owe them money but literally cannot prove it.

    So who should they repay?

  129. Re:blatent TOS violation in pursuit of TROLLOLOLIS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    C. D. are your initials, Reimer is your last name - not particularly inventive, n'est-ce pas?

    My father called me Christopher Dale (think Christopher Robin from Winnie the Pooh, who was the author's son). ....

    I would rather think "football player", may I?

  130. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I see.

    So, I took out a loan from Bank A.
    Then Bank A sells it to Bank B. Bank B sells it to bank C, and so on until eventually it gets to bank Z.

    At some point in there, I tried to pay bank A, but they say they no longer own my loan. I ask them who does own it and they say Bank B. I contact bank B and get told the same thing. Go all the way down to Bank M, who says they no longer have records as to who owns my debt.

    Bank Z sells my debt to a collections agency. Collection agency tries a few times, unsuccessfully, to collect because they can't find me because the documentation is so bad/out of date, and sells my debt to another agency. Lather, rinse repeat until some collections agency finally does manage to find me (and I wasn't hiding) and sends me a letter demanding payment.

    I have never, ever, heard of this agency. As far as I know, they're a scam. I ask them to provide proof that they own the loan. They cannot provide proof because the paperwork has been lost. How do I know they aren't a scam? How do I know that they are actually owners of the debt? How do I know that there won't be someone else coming along later, since there are such shitty records, demanding I pay them back, too?

    How about this:
    If someone owes you money, KEEP FUCKING RECORDS. If you can't keep records to prove they owe you money, guess what? That's on you, not them.

    Whole lot of corporate cocksucks in this thread.

  131. Re:blatent TOS violation in pursuit of TROLLOLOLIS by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    Go ahead and try to sign up variations of the name "creimer". Either Slashdot took pity on this medical moron, or he actually signed up dozens of variations of cdreimer. c.d.reimer, cd.reimer, cdreimer. , .c.reimer. , etc, are all taken. They weren't just a few months ago.

    I've noticed that too. I suspect management did that. After all, I did fire a DMCA takedown notice across their bow.

    https://slashdot.org/~creimer/submissions

    If you had reading glasses, you would notice that the last time I submitted a story under creimer was 14 months ago. I've submitted seven stories in the last month under cdreimer.

    Look, the evidence is right there!

    Still looking for Hillary's emails?

  132. Re:blatent TOS violation in pursuit of TROLLOLOLIS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "I don't publish content under my legal name because my legal name isn't unique."

    You literally FIVE MINUTES ago boasted that you publish content under cdreimer right here!

    How the fuck does that defective mass of useless fat inside your skull manage to figure out breathing?

    How does your neck handle the hundred of Gs from the constant flip-flopping? You change your story more often than Mitt Romney during a debate!

  133. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm sorry but the facts are facts. If you want an education then you have to pay for it.

    Nitpick: "Wanting an education" is the primary component to getting one. You don't necessarily have to pay for it, except in the more broad sense of "paying your dues", spending the time/effort and accepting the opportunity costs.

    What most people are after when they go to university is not an education, but credentials and making friends with future investors. Don't let schooling get in the way of your education.

  134. Re:blatent TOS violation in pursuit of TROLLOLOLIS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    you sound angry, bro

  135. Re:blatent TOS violation in pursuit of TROLLOLOLIS by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    "I don't publish content under my legal name because my legal name isn't unique."

    You literally FIVE MINUTES ago boasted that you publish content under cdreimer right here!

    C.D. Reimer isn't my legal name.

    How the fuck does that defective mass of useless fat inside your skull manage to figure out breathing?

    How does your neck handle the hundred of Gs from the constant flip-flopping? You change your story more often than Mitt Romney during a debate!

    I'm not the one arguing a non-existent argument.

  136. Over 180k of my loans are uncollectable. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have over 180K in this situation.

    I stopped paying in 2012, when I couldn't afford to pay it anymore. It was 2k a month.

    I researched it a bit, and requested loan validation - basically requesting proof of original paperwork ownership by the lender.
    There was no originals. No one had them. As soon as I requested this, the loans got sold off.

    They have been sold off 9 times since then. Every time I do the same procedure - request validation of original wet signature note.

    The loans are past statue of limitations in california now - which is 4 years. Even if they could find original paperwork, chances of collection are zero.

  137. Re:blatent TOS violation in pursuit of TROLLOLOLIS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Fake accounts created for the expressed purpose of harassing another user qualifies as a TOS violation."

    So stop blabbing about your "DMCA takedown fired across their bow", which you then say they won't confirm.

    And the idea of YOU writing about a female lead character is so demented it beggars belief, askance.

    Yes, I've read enough of your shit to know exactly how awful it is, as well as all your various grammar foibles and incoherences.

    One thing I do admire about you, is your immense self-confidence. I'm a thousand times the man you are, yet I don't have even a shred of your chutzpah. I guess humility is another of those words you have no idea what to do with. It's mind-boggling that someone with so little can make so much noise about it. But I've noticed that's usually how life works, the least qualified make the most noise.

    The most qualified simply produce results. You, will end up as a wiki page, maybe.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_McGonagall

    Your various creimes against literature wouldn't even get a failing grade in high school, I'd toss them straight in the bin. No effort, sub-mediocre offenses to the printed word.

    PS: You sure you don't have ancestors in Spain?

  138. Re:blatent TOS violation in pursuit of TROLLOLOLIS by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    One thing I do admire about you, is your immense self-confidence.

    I stopped believing what my naysayers said me about years ago.

    I'm a thousand times the man you are, yet I don't have even a shred of your chutzpah. I guess humility is another of those words you have no idea what to do with.

    If you had humility, you wouldn't be bragging about being a bigger prick than me.

  139. For-Profit Schools by sexconker · · Score: 1

    They're all "for-profit schools".

  140. Re:blatent TOS violation in pursuit of TROLLOLOLIS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My father called me Christopher Dale (think Christopher Robin from Winnie the Pooh, who was the author's son).

    Yes. And your "pen name" is a diminutive form of your legal name - therefore it does not qualify as a pseudonym. Even if it WAS a pseudonym, it would not be eligible for copyright protection.

    Repeat after me, creimer: "NAMES ARE NOT COPYRIGHTABLE. PSEUDONYMS ARE NOT COPYRIGHTABLE. Any attempt to enforce copyrights against someone else for their use of a name that is similar to (or exactly identical to) your name is laughably unenforceable."

    C.D. is also a gender-neutral name. Since I find myself working with female editors and creating short stories with lead female characters, a gender-neutral name helps in attracting female readers.

    None of which is remotely relevant in a discussion of copyrights.

    Fake accounts created for the expressed purpose of harassing another user qualifies as a TOS violation.

    Which is why I said that it was your "ONLY legitimate claim" against the cdreimer account. Yet you persist in talking about how your "DMCA notice" got the account shut down because of "muh copyrights!"

    It is absolutely evident that your imagined "copyrights" on the name "C.D. Reimer" had absolutely NOTHING to do with the takedown, and any first year law student would have laughed your DMCA request right into the shredder. Your "copyright" claim is baseless and toothless. You have NO copyrights on the name "C. D. Reimer," or "cdreimer."

  141. Re:blatent TOS violation in pursuit of TROLLOLOLIS by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    You have NO copyrights on the name "C. D. Reimer," or "cdreimer."

    I have copyrights in the name of C.D. Reimer. When someone creates an account in my name (or a variation thereof), has the home page link set to my website, and post as if I was posting the comment, I took immediate action to protect my copyrights.

  142. Re:blatent TOS violation in pursuit of TROLLOLOLIS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have copyrights in the name of C.D. Reimer. When someone creates an account in my name (or a variation thereof), has the home page link set to my website, and post as if I was posting the comment, I took immediate action to protect my copyrights.

    Holy shit, are you truly this dense?

    YOUR NAME, and VARIANTS OF IT, are not copyrightable. The copyrights you have are on the *works* that you have published. If somebody LINKS to your website, that is NOT an infringement of your copyrights. There is NO COURT IN THE COUNTRY that would say that this is an infringement of your copyrights. Links do not infringe on copyrights. Framing & in-lining of your content might be an infringement, but that's not what's happening here.

    YOUR COPYRIGHTS ARE NOT AND HAVE NOT EVER BEEN INFRINGED BY SOMEONE MAKING A TROLL ACCOUNT TO IMPERSONATE YOU.

    It is inconvenient, and it may be against the TOS Slashdot asks users to agree to when registering an account, but it does not, and will not ever, rise to the level of a copyright infringement, unless the troll begins posting your copyrighted materials in a way that you don't approve of - and that has nothing to do with the userid of the person doing the posting! If I cut & pasted one of your shitty stories here in this comment box, I'd be infringing your copyrights. If I wrote, "MY NAME IS CREIMER AND I LIKE TO POOP AND WRITE," and linked to your website, that is NOT infringing your copyrights.

    Good lord, I cannot even believe you're this stupid. Here's what you can accurately & truthfully claim: "I didn't like that there was a troll using a variant of my name on Slashdot, calling me names and making me feel stupid. So I complained to the Slashdot administrators that this person was violating the TOS, and had the account shut down." It had NOTHING to do with your copyrights, real or imagined.

  143. Re:blatent TOS violation in pursuit of TROLLOLOLIS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "I stopped believing what my naysayers said me [sic] about years [sic] ago."

    Uh oh. Fat fingers keyboard mash, brain words. Anger showing, buy new keyboard. Again.

    "If you had humility, you wouldn't be bragging about being a bigger prick than me."

    It's simple evidence. Not bragging. To deny it would be disingenuous. Lies don't come to me as easily as they do for you.

    I don't brag about not being a virgin, it's a simple fact.

  144. Yep--that's the first thing you do by karlandtanya · · Score: 1

    When Tanya and I started paying back student loans, the *FIRST* thing we did was write each creditor and ask them for the loan documentation, and we specifically asked they show us the original agreement and copy of the signature. We also asked for documentation proving they now own the debt and that when we pay it off it will be done done.

    If you don't do this, you run a damned good chance of having to pay the loan more than once.

    Pretty much all of them were able to schlep up copies of paper signed years ago, along with who bought what debt from whom all the way down to the current owner. This tells me that they know they don't get paid if they screw this up.

    Only one or two couldn't produce; we told them "well, if you come up with the docs, contact us; otherwise, sorry--we don't know you!".

    --
    "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
  145. Re:blatent TOS violation in pursuit of TROLLOLOLIS by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    I didn't like that there was a troll using a variant of my name on Slashdot, calling me names and making me feel stupid.

    ROFL

  146. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you don't give the student the degree you are harming them for life, the papers will drag the entirety of the school council through the circus that is media these days, and you will be hounded by lawsuits until you die.

    Nevermind that the real harm is not ensuring that the kids know what they need to know.

    Threats of shaming and lawsuits always win the day in good old USA.

  147. Re:blatent TOS violation in pursuit of TROLLOLOLIS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Actually, you protected nothing, you got your fat face on a bunch of dick picks on the internet and here, and you spent an insane amount of time on all this. They then created more accounts so you'd jump through more hoops like a good little monkey. Then they got bored and got you fighting a script now and posting about it for our viewing pleasure. You didn't even get the last account that was in your name. It only had two comments. Because they got bored spending time posting. Only so much funny can be produced on a single topic, no matter how fat it is.

  148. Re:blatent TOS violation in pursuit of TROLLOLOLIS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    you want people making fun of an ugly loser spammer reject to have humility while doing it? you should go pray for that, maybe they'll get some.

  149. Re:blatent TOS violation in pursuit of TROLLOLOLIS by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    [...] you got your fat face on a bunch of dick picks on the internet and here [...]

    Soon to become a YouTube video as I explain how to take down dick pics from Russian image websites using Google Chrome's "translate to English" feature.

    You didn't even get the last account that was in your name. It only had two comments.

    That account doesn't exist. Otherwise, post the name of the account.

  150. Re:blatent TOS violation in pursuit of TROLLOLOLIS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Can some black hat please please DDOS all sites affiliated with this trolll? Sometimes hosting providers like dreamhost suspend accounts when they become too problematic, it occurred before.

  151. Re:blatent TOS violation in pursuit of TROLLOLOLIS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ROFL

    What are you laughing about - did you find a piece of candy in your pocket?

    So your response when it's laid out for you in simple, black and white terms is to ignore the data presented, and just "ROFL"?

    Thanks for conceding the points, chump. Can we expect you to stop whining about your copyrights and the DMCA now?

  152. Re:Too bad. by 0123456 · · Score: 1

    "Ditto. If you want public schools that provide an education, then you have to pay for it."

    Yet actual reality shows that the more money thrown at US public schools, the worse the results have become.

    Government is the only area where you're rewarded with more money for doing a worse job.

  153. Re:blatent TOS violation in pursuit of TROLLOLOLIS by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    Can some black hat please please DDOS all sites affiliated with this trolll?

    You must be very desperate to have my websites and YouTube account targeted for DDOS.

    Sometimes hosting providers like dreamhost suspend accounts when they become too problematic, it occurred before.

    My web hosting account has been holding up quite well from the extra gigabytes of Slashdot traffic.

  154. Re:blatent TOS violation in pursuit of TROLLOLOLIS by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    What are you laughing about - did you find a piece of candy in your pocket?

    That you think that three months of dog piling my comments, creating fake accounts and posting dick picks had taken a toll on me on emotionally. That's funny. Only 14-year-old wankers think their actions has any affect on the world. As one of my friends told me after reading the comments, "These people need to get a life."

  155. Y'all are morans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Okay, so here's the deal with Debt Validation Letters.

    If you use a DVL to attempt to skirt a valid debt - that is one you entered into in good faith - chances are you are going to end up on the wrong side of a civil suit, or worse, a criminal prosecution. The odds of you getting "lucky" and your debt servicer NOT having copies of the original paperwork are *incredibly slim* or none at all. A very small percentage of paperweights (what we call them in the debt industry) will be defective to the extent the debt would be invalidated (which you still have to have done in court, btw).

    Here's another thing about DVLs. There is no time limit to respond. A servicer can sit on it as long as they like if the debt is valid. There is no law or rule that says a debt is automatically invalidated if a servicer does not respond in a certain time window. And, if the debt is valid, you will still have to pay it eventually, because the statute of limitations does not expire a valid debt.

    So, let's say you are maliciously trying to have a valid debt expunged. A servicer can receive your DVL, go quiet while it does all the research it can on you and works with the authorities to build a case against you for fraud, and then 2 years later when you're in the middle of trying to buy that first home or when your wife is in the hospital with cancer, they will show up with the authorities and ruin your life with the evidence that the debt is valid and you knew it.

    So, go ahead and take your chances. I have seen this happen more than once when typically young, naive borrowers fall for the "fix your credit" or "erase your student loan" internet scams that ask you to write a DVL to all of your creditors. I've seen stiff penalties and jail time handed out... so... just keep that in mind before you decide to go that route...

  156. Re:blatent TOS violation in pursuit of TROLLOLOLIS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    had taken a toll on me on emotionally. That's funny.

    This only makes sense if I allow you to maintain the fiction that "copyright" was ever the issue with the troll accounts. I won't. Copyright was not, and never was, the issue. The ONLY reason you got the troll account closed was that you complained to management about how it was a violation of the TOS.

    Slashdot's editors didn't close it because "creimer's copyrights!" They closed it because you cried to them about how upset you were. It's funny that you keep trying to pass this off as simply a "copyright" action that you took as a business decision, though. I'd ROFL, but you're too fucking sad.

  157. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So they should have used a 3d printer? No, I mean a blockchain.

  158. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Lending money is entirely different between friends.

    When you lend money to a mate, the borrower is responsible for tracking and repaying the loan - that's because as the lender, I'm not charging interest, and am doing you a favour, so the least you can do is make the transaction as painless and simple for me as possible. This includes repaying the total amount in full as one lump sum (doesn't matter how far in the future) and including a case of beer, or nice wine bottle, as a sweetener and sign of gratitude.

    Anything less, then yes, you're a cunt.

  159. Re:blatent TOS violation in pursuit of TROLLOLOLIS by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    The ONLY reason you got the troll account closed was that you complained to management about how it was a violation of the TOS.

    Management never explained why they deleted all five accounts. The first one was requested under DMCA, and the other four I pointed out with the expectation that nothing would be done.

    It's funny that you keep trying to pass this off as simply a "copyright" action that you took as a business decision, though.

    I filed many DMCA takedown notices in the last 10 years. Slashdot wasn't anything out of the ordinary. Once I had the contact info for the Russian image websites in a spreadsheet, it took only five minutes to copy, paste and send each one off.

  160. $12 Billion in Students' Debt by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, like 3 people?

  161. Re:Too bad. by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

    You have an ethical responsibility to provide for corporate profit, even when they don't follow the laws that govern their industry?

  162. Re:Too bad. by AK+Marc · · Score: 1
    The borrower needs to track the loan so far as to protect their interests. The corporation is responsible for the same. If either party fails, then they "deserve" (under law) to lose their interests.

    You're looking to escape responsibility for your actions and are part of the real problem.

    Corporations avoid as much tax as possible. They don't follow the laws as intended, but as written. Anyone dealing with the corporations would be unethical to treat them otherwise.

    The only ethical choice is to screw the corporation.

  163. Re:Too bad. by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

    I've lived it. I had a written agreement with a company discharging my debt, as they failed to deliver and wanted to avoid court. The company I had that discharge of debt with folded. I discarded my written agreement after 7 years. 10 years after the "debt" that never existed, I had a collections company contact me, demanding payment. It showed up on my credit report as a current debt in default.

    That's not the exception to the rule. That is the rule. The company was sold. They then bulk-sold every debt ever, without care or diligence. It was illegal. It took me a long time to clear it up. That's SOP for corporations.

    That you assume benevolence and fair play on the part of corporation is simply insane. Anyone dealing with them should treat them in the manner they treat others. By the letter of the law, exploiting the law as much as possible.

  164. Re:blatent TOS violation in pursuit of TROLLOLOLIS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    " When someone creates an account in my name (or a variation thereof)"

    Better take immediate action here to protect your copyrights.

    https://github.com/creimer

    As a content creator, you must protect your copyrights or risk losing them.

  165. Re:Too bad. by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

    I've just said people are ethically bound to pay their debts,

    While the corporations claim they are ethically bound to not pay their debts (tax avoidance), I'd argue that you are ethically bound to hold the corporations to the law, even if that impairs their profits.

  166. Re:blatent TOS violation in pursuit of TROLLOLOLIS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I got a Black Amazon Dot, which matches my vintage 2006 Black Macbook.

  167. Re:Too bad. by brantondaveperson · · Score: 1

    So, the public schools are bad, and your solution is to make everyone pay for education, rather than fix the system? I bet fixing it wouldn't even be all that hard, for someone who wasn't afraid to pay teachers what they're really worth. Once upon a time, teaching was considered to be a highly respected profession, and was renumerated accordingly.

    Free, public education is a cornerstone of civilisation. Take it away, and replace it with private schooling for everyone, and see what suddenly only the rich can accomplish.

  168. Re:blatent TOS violation in pursuit of TROLLOLOLIS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah, figured the fat fuck would ignore this. He doesn't have a stilt to stand on, the potato-sack-shaped Barbapapa.

  169. Re:Too bad. by chmod+a+x+mojo · · Score: 1

    Yes you did actually, and no, you did not *only* say or even intimate that people are ethically responsible for paying debt.

    You simply attempted to shove the book keeping aspect from the lender, who should be all rights have to be kept to much stricter standards, to the borrower. Being as you can't prove a negative - I.E. Some random lender claims someone borrowed $X, that person doesn't have to prove they didn't borrow the money, the lender has to prove that the person did in fact borrow the money.

    This is all beside the fact that unless the transfer of the debt was in the original contract the borrower should not be ethically bound to repay the second party that the debt was sold to. In the case of no selling clause being in the contract the borrower only has the ethical obligation to give money to the original lender, and the original lender only has the obligation to take the money from the borrower if they still hold if the original loan.

    You want to sell in the case of no "we can sell to anyone, anytime" clauses? Make sure that I agree to have the debt moved to a different agency, one that will have to give me better terms for accepting the move. Otherwise I have no ethical obligation to give the new lender any payment as they are not the ones contracted to me originally. I also do not have any ethical obligations to keep paying the original lender since the can't ethically accept the payment anymore due to not holding the loan.

    We, as a people in america, generally laud corporations for finding and exploiting every loophole possible to make as much profit as possible ( go capitalism rah rah rah ). We should also shower individuals with the same respect when they can do the same thing, whether intentionally or not, and boo the corporations for not protecting themselves and doing due diligence - thus losing money.
     

    --
    To err is human; effective mayhem requires the root password!
  170. Re:blatent TOS violation in pursuit of TROLLOLOLIS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ROFL

    What are you laughing about - did you find a piece of candy in your pocket?

    Even better, I forgot I had those delivered to the office and I just found out about them:
    https://tinyurl.com/ycvpsxvx
    https://tinyurl.com/y9zg7a3x
    https://tinyurl.com/y8cmua94
    -creimer
    --
    There are 10 kinds of people on Slashdot. Which kind are you? https://www.cdreimer.com/slash...

  171. Re:Too bad. by blindseer · · Score: 1

    So, the public schools are bad, and your solution is to make everyone pay for education, rather than fix the system?

    They are paying for their children's education, it's just hidden in their sales taxes and such. The problem is that the schools do not answer to the parents, they answer to the school board.

    I bet fixing it wouldn't even be all that hard, for someone who wasn't afraid to pay teachers what they're really worth.

    They get paid based on pleasing the government, not on pleasing the students or the parents. Paying them more won't fix that.

    Once upon a time, teaching was considered to be a highly respected profession, and was renumerated accordingly.

    What changed since then? I'll give you a hint, it's two words, it ends with "schools", and starts with "public".

    Free, public education is a cornerstone of civilisation. Take it away, and replace it with private schooling for everyone, and see what suddenly only the rich can accomplish.

    I've read history and my skin crawls at the abuse public schools have done to children in the past. In Depression era public schools German students were given math problems on how many able bodied workers it took to support the weak minded workers. This isn't an education, this is indoctrination. They were preparing these children for what was to come. I learned this in a Western Civilization class and in a later lesson the professor thought it was so great on how British children were provided free public education after the war. I asked him what kept British schools from repeating the "lessons" taught in the pre-war German schools. He didn't have an answer.

    This is not a system that can be "fixed" because it is broken by its very nature. Public schools teach children and parents that the center of society rests with the government. It should not and cannot. The center of society should be the family.

    My guess is that you are the product of public education, and you have learned your lessons well.

    You think that only the rich would be able to educate their children? Books are cheap, people give them away, as are paper and pencils. Physics, chemistry, and art classes might need some materials but get creative, ask for donations, search through the junkyard. Children don't need the latest electronic gadgets to learn, they need teachers that give a damn. If all they are looking for is a bigger check from the government then that is the wrong person to have as a teacher.

    --
    I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
  172. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This isn't a loophole, this is a written right and protection afforded to people. Your responsibility is to pay back the money, their responsibility is to keep an accurate record of your debt. If they do not keep a record, they have violated the contract and thus nullified it.

  173. Re:blatent TOS violation in pursuit of TROLLOLOLIS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    While real accounts can proudly declare they're here to spam people to make some extra pennies. Who cares about the TOS. You have zero idea why they took those down. Given that you getting the first one removed created a shit-ton more, I'm going to guess those were created just to have you take them down. Before they switched to you having you battle a script. You ever go back and check if those picture links are down? About a third are up by my quick glance. Since I don't see your slashdot comments disappearing from a search for you, you just did some damage to your career and personal relationships. Hope those pennies were worth it.

  174. Re:Too bad. by SuiteSisterMary · · Score: 1

    And similarly, the people they borrowed money from have a duty, when transferring that debt, to make sure that the claims on that debt are free and clear. If I show up at your house with a handwritten note that says 'bob said you sold him your car and he sold it to me,' that's about as meaningful as XYZ collection agency calling up and saying 'you owe us money.'

    --
    Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
  175. Re:Too bad. by SuiteSisterMary · · Score: 1

    And you should still absolutely verify everything.

    When your electric company sends you a bill, you still, or should, check that the usage looks right, that you aren't being overcharged, and so on; you don't, or shouldn't, simply blindly write a cheque for the amount printed on the bill and mail it in.

    Similarly, when your mortgage company sends you your regular remittance slip, it's on you to double-check it. When they send you your annual summary, it's on you to check it. And if something looks wrong, it's on them to demonstrate that it's correct.

    --
    Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
  176. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I love how we always talk about personal responsibility and corporate responsibility, but it's always the little guy that gets hit by it. Why is it the borrowers ethical responsibility to pay the loan back, but not the owner of the loan's responsibility to actually track what people owe them? Seems to me that ethically, if you can't prove someone owes you something, then they don't owe you jack.

    Legally they do not owe you jack, but if they know they took out the loans then ethically they owe you what they agreed to.

  177. Exported as Inflation to Rest of the World by NewYork · · Score: 1
  178. it's not so cut and dried by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I did not work in the educational loan industry, but I did work in the mortgage industry.

    From 2001-2004ish, when Bank A sold loans to Bank B, Bank B would have us do the due diligence on them. Track down all the paperwork and make sure everything was legit.

    It was never all legit.

    Never.

    (Except when Bank A was selling loans to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, because they didn't want to screw over the feds and end up in prison.)

    Every single time there were multiple copies of the same loan in the bundle. Usually a third of the loans in the bundle were duplicates. Sometimes more.

    This wasn't a fluke, and only one or two bad apples did it. Nope, it was industry wide practice, as far as I could tell. Even the banks that hired us to ferret out the dupes tried to sell duplicates to other banks. It's not like the practice started just as we got into business, and it sure didn't go away when we went under (largest client stiffed us for over a year). Some of our clients, when we brought this to their attention, went through their old records, discovered they had bought multiple copies of the same loan, and then sold the same loan to different banks. So you would have God knows how many banks all thinking they owned the same loan.

    And that's not even beginning to count all the other paperwork errors we would find. People mistype stuff, numbers get transposed, names get mixed up. Even if everything is correct, sometimes the paperwork gets lost: courthouses burn down sometimes, and they loose all their records. Or they are flooded, or the bank that owned the loan for a while moved their records to an off-site facility and the clerks didn't want to go there because it is dusty and "gross", so they just rubber stamp the legal documents asking them to swear that the info is correct, or their records are lost in flood/fire/coffee spills/lost in the move/termites/silverfish/rats!. I imagine on the student loans, which does not require paperwork to be filed with the county or state or town, that the record keeping is at least as sloppy, and perhaps the problems worse!

    So yeah, it's not just "people who don't want to pay their debt" it is very often "people who don't actually owe the bank/lender who claims they owe them" and the lender/bank may not be crooked, they may legitimately think they are owed that debt, but were sold worthless paper.

  179. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you want public schools that provide an education, then you have to pay for it. So the next time someone tells you "it's the teacher's fault!!!!", ask them why we pay teachers so little (thus getting reducing teacher quality),

    Citation required. Please show that public teachers' salaries cause poor teacher quality.

  180. Re:Too bad. by MooseMiester · · Score: 1

    "A corporation declares bankruptcy and it has virtually no effect. "

    Please confirm you have no higher education. If you do, then I hope you didn't take out a loan to learn this.

    --
    Murphy was an optimist
  181. Re:Too bad. by MooseMiester · · Score: 1

    No, no, no that's not how the system works! The government forces you to loan money to people who can't pay it back, and when you get out from under it by selling it to some sucker, you get called a racist, or worse. Gee, where have you been the last twenty years? Oh, and I forgot, it's never the government's fault, not ever.

    --
    Murphy was an optimist
  182. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So the next time someone tells you "it's the teacher's fault!!!!", ask them why we pay teachers so little (thus getting reducing teacher quality), and why they keep insisting on further cuts to education budgets.

    Teacher's unions are a big part of the reason why it appears we pay teachers so little. They are controlled by people with seniority, and have set up the system to direct the lion's share of the funds to the teachers with seniority - who actually have pretty decent salaries.

    Add to that the huge amounts taken out of education for administration and other hanger's on, and you end with relatively little left over for many of the teachers - and big class sizes. It's an educational nightmare.

    A young teacher might be 10x better than many of the senior teacher's, but they'll make half the salary.

    Seniority based pay sucks. Experience can count, but it can also make people set in their ways, lazy, and hidebound. There needs to be a fixed limit on how much additional pay people can make as a result of seniority, perhaps 10%.

    Unions are not always bad - but the disease of senioritis tends to corrupt most them eventually. It's like Chaos in Warhammer.

  183. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ah, you're confusing legality and ethics. Legality relates to obligations specified by law and enforced by courts. Ethics relates to "feels," the dictates of invisible men in the sky, and anything that you can throw at a wall that advantages you at the time.

    Myth. Ethics codes have been a part of law for a long, long time. Further, more and more governments are adding them to the laws governing their conduct. These codes can even apply to conduct of citizens overseas, such as the US law making bribery in foreign nations illegal by US businesses. Many employers requires people to take courses on this topic every year - but those courses only scratch the surface of this issue.

    Further, in the US system, the Bill of Rights is open ended. James Madison cleverly made it that way to address the objections of the Anti-Federalists. The 9th Amendment provides for unspecified rights "retained by" the people, the 10th Amendment provides for unspecified rights "reserved to" the people. Rights relating to ethics are certainly among the rights that can be asserted under the authority of these amendments, such as the right to ethical government, and the right to ethical practice of law. As nothing in these Amendments limits application to government, a right to ethics in business can even be asserted. Working out the details of what these rights involve will not be trivial, of course - but it is clear that a lot of what goes on presently (in law, in government, and in business) is violating any reasonable definition of such rights - and hence illegal.

    In this case, of course, the right to ethical government invalidates the current government policy of school debts: government officials must avoid even the appearance of conflict of interest, but we have government officials taking campaign contributions from businesses owning such debts (and those officials select the judges that rule on the laws they write).

    As such, the exclusion of student debts from bankruptcy is certainly an illegal violation of the Bill of Rights: it is inappropriate for businesses to be able to declare bankruptcy (often clearing large debts owed the public), but not for ordinary people to do the same (clearing debts owed large businesses).

    In this day and age, of course, Bill of Rights violations are an everyday occurrence in the USA - so the fact that yet another one is occurring should come as no surprise to anybody with a functioning brain.

    While the law on bankrupcy clearly violated the Bill of Rights and needs to be re-written, on a more fundamental level the US higher education system needs massive reform (perhaps on a European style model). Educational debt does not serve the public interest.

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