Verizon is finally installing FiOS in my area. But I’ll never use it. I’ll never sign up for another Verizon account in my life, and I’m encouraging my parents to change to a different service when their Verizon cell contracts end soon. Over the course of eight months, I’ve become completely appalled at the horrible customer service I’ve gotten from that company.
Zombie Debt: How Credit Card Companies Illegally Reanimate Your Old Debt
By November 2, 2007
In what BusinessWeek calls “financial Night of the Living Dead” credit card companies are refusing to stop reporting legally discharged debt to credit reporting agencies—illegally forcing consumers to pay debts that they no longer owe in order to get approved for mortgages.
The Midlothian Police Department Should Not Collect Private Debts
By July 29, 2007
The Midlothian, IL Chief of Police thinks it’s appropriate for his officers to help local businesses collect private debts. Midlothian’s local mechanic, Merlin’s Muffler and Brake, performed $500 of work for Angela Proctor, who paid back all but $108 before falling into financial trouble. From The Star:
"National Credit Audit Corporation" Tries To Collect Bogus Debt
By June 21, 2007
Brian writes us, enraged at Popular Science for sending him to a debt collector in an attempt to get him to renew his subscription. We were unsurprised to learn that Brian had received a notice from the “National Credit Audit Corporation” of lovely Peoria, IL.
Discover's Debt Collectors' Threats Drive Woman To Suicide
By June 8, 2007
The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act starts out this way:
There is abundant evidence of the use of abusive, deceptive, and unfair debt collection practices by many debt collectors. Abusive debt collection practices contribute to the number of personal bankruptcies, to marital instability, to the loss of jobs, and to invasions of individual privacy.
One of the things debt collection leads to that is missing to the FDCPA’s introduction is this: suicide.
Sallie Mae Is Still Ruining Your Life!
By March 27, 2007
The FDSL just sent me a loan cancellation letter. They have decided that they will only take federal loans now to consolidate and Sallie Mae is primarily a private lender, and that is what they report my loan as. What the difference between a federal guaranteed loan and what they consider a federal loan through a private company is beyond me.
Credit Card Documentary "Maxed Out" Opens Today
By March 9, 2007
Maxed Out, a documentary about the credit card industry, is opening today in select cities (New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, Washington DC, Seattle, and Austin) and next week in a few more (Chicago, Boston, and Minneapolis).
Help Sallie Mae is Ruining My Life!
By February 15, 2007
I was hoping that I could get my interest rate down and also my monthly payments down considerably. Not a chance. They even get belligerent if you dare trying to make payment arrangements. I even tried to send $600 one month hoping they would take it in good faith and they just sent it back. It’s either payment in full, or nothing so they can charge you late fees.
Does anyone out there have some advice for this guy? .—MEGHANN MARCO
Scientific American Wants Money For No Reason
By November 21, 2006
Reader Maxwell writes in after having been served with a collection notice from a magazine that he’s never subscribed to. Did he piss off a 8th grader, or what?
So You’ve Been Served By A Debt Collector
By November 10, 2006
Not all people whose accounts are sold to debt collectors are cheats and scalawags. Sometimes they’re just people who made a mistake somewhere… or sometimes the debt isn’t even valid
