Credit Card Debt Collection Looks a Lot Like Foreclosure Fraud

[phantom power]

Companies "believe" this because in recent history it's 100% true. And they will cheerfully continue until some banksters start going to prison and doing hard time. This is a very simple dynamic.

Considering how banks got away with submitting false documents to state courts on mortgage and foreclosure issues, why should we be surprised that they brought the same eye for detail to credit card debt collection?

We’ve known this for a while – back in March, JPMorgan Chase was found to have robo-signed documents and shredded others in their credit card debt collection process. Bank of America also kept dodgy records on credit card debt. American Banker did a great series on this. Now this rises to the New York Times‘ level, with a takeout on the problems credit card companies are having in courts with bad documentation. Again.

...

I don’t know if we can pinpoint the day when banks and financial firms decided they didn’t have to care anymore about accurate record-keeping. But clearly, that day came long ago, and the companies believe that their political power can inoculate them from any damage caused by lying to courts, stealing from their customers without verifiable information, and basically making a mockery of the longstanding system of debt that goes back to the 1677 Statute of Frauds.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has done a lot of work in this space, and maybe on a going-forward basis we can restore some of the integrity to the system. CFPB’s first enforcement action got a full refund for Capital One customers ripped off by add-on credit card fees. But this is a far more fundamental problem. Credit card companies cannot verify their customers’ debts. That’s kind of the whole point of a credit card company!

http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/08/13/credit-card-debt-collection-looks-a-lot-like-foreclosure-fraud/

[russspeakeasy]

1. Thanks...

[RebelOne]

2. I got into real financial trouble because of credit card debt.

So I had to file a Chapter 13 bankruptcy. I could not do a Chapter 7 because my income exceeded my payments. Even though I had to make payments to the credit card companies through the court, the payments very low and it kept the collectors off my back.