What's wrong with GQ? -- ignorant answers

The BBQ Pit
1

What’s wrong with GQ? Many of the questions posted in GQ call for factual answers. Yet people post totally wrong information all the time, just because they either heard something somewhere or they just want to take a guess. Yet they don’t qualify their posts; they just make bare assertions. Other people post nonresponsively, or just take potshots at other posters as if this were GD.

Crap answers vastly outnumber legitimate answers in this thread.

The OP talks about how em’s brother has unpaid credit card bills that have been sold to a collection agency, and the collection agency is “handing the case over to the county sheriff.” The OP asks what to expect. Here are the responses the OP gets:

[ul]
[li]“He’s going to jail. It happened to a buddy of mine.” Wrong.[/li][li]A brief and accurate answer from hajario[/li][li]Balthisar’s telling the first replier that he really doesn’t think the US has debtors’ prisons.[/li][li]A response claiming that while personal property of the debtor can be seized to pay the debt in England, “that practice was abolished in the United States.” Wrong.[/li][li]Another brief and accurate answer, this time from SnoopyFan[/li][li]A response contingent upon the notion that there are two kinds of sheriffs – “criminal” and “civil” – and suggesting that there’s the faint possibility of jail time. Wrong.[/li][li]Some advice that may be the best course of action from labdude, but not really responsive to the OP.[/li][li]Another totally wrong post claiming that personal property can only be seized to satisfy a debt in bankruptcy, or where the loan was extended to enable the purchase of the particular items seized. (I guess this person was thinking of secured debt, and how secured creditors can resort to self-help to collect on a debt so long as they do not breach the peace.)[/li][li]A dead-on accurate answer from Bricker[/li][li]An irrelevant discussion of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.[/li][li]A post correctly recognizing that that this is unsecured debt, but wrongly suggesting that the statute of limitations might apply, or that otherwise the unsecured creditor can’t do much.[/li][li]A post suggesting that the brother may well go to jail if he doesn’t turn over levied upon property. Doubtful. The sheriff will just take it; but jail time could be in the cards for the brother if he tries stopping the sheriff from doing this.[/li][li]Another accurate post from Bricker, asking how the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act applies.[/li][li]My post trying to explain what’s happening.[/li][li]An accurate post from KellyM explaining that the collection process stops with the filing of a bankruptcy petition. (Which is correct – see section 362(a) of the bankruptcy code, providing for an automatic stay of actions to collect on prepetition debts upon the filing of a bankruptcy petition.)[/li][li]Some unclear advice involving a finger and seven years. Is this a reference to filing for bankruptcy? Or is this a reference to waiting out the statute of limitations – ignoring the fact that the creditors won’t just sit with their thumbs up their butts in the meantime, but instead will continue with the judicial proceedings already explained.[/li][li]A great post from Omar, whose brother previously worked for a collection agency and relaying his brother’s prediction of the course of events.[/li][li]A request that the OP say what state all of this occurs in. Could be useful information, but we’d also need to know what assets the OP’s brother has and etc. But this is an area of the law where state laws are more similar than different in most respects (they don’t call it the “Uniform” Commercial Code for nothing).[/li][li]Another post from a Doper with first-hand collection agency experience – Monty. Vouches for honesty of collection agency for which em worked.[/li][li]A post saying that the OP’s brother is a bum and will probably ask the OP for money.[/li][li]A post claiming that unsecured creditors can’t do anything to collect on their debt except to threaten to muck up your credit rating if you don’t pay. Totally wrong.[/li][li]My post saying that the previous post is wrong.[/li][/ul]
This thread hasn’t been a train-wreck of the type that has been seen before in GQ. I chose it for this thread because it seems to be par for the course – which is sad. GQ could be so much more useful.
[soapbox] Please observe GQ’s forum description – for factual questions and factual answers. WAGs are fine (if suspect), but they should be labeled as such. Let’s fight ignorance, not perpetuate it. [/soapbox]

2

It just proves that free advice is usually worth every penny you pay for it!

3

I love the General Question section. Even if the answers are only opinion, it stimulates me to seek out more information on the subject. I like the personal comments.

4

I’m all for opinions, properly labeled as such. But bare assertions of unresearched opinions masquerading as fact? Not a fan.

5

What a boring place without opinions. I also like the humor that is sometimes inserted.

6

That’s pretty much why I never go into GQ.

7

That post was mine…

No statute of limitations?

I beg to differ.

http://www.cardreport.com/laws/statute-of-limitations.html

You might want to get your facts straight before you cast aspersions at others.

8

Heh, I was just at that thread, posting an “IIRC”. Heck, I love the train wrecks, they are the most informative threads. I lost a little bit of my ignorance when I was smacked down in a thread about account numbers a month or so back. Learning like that is fun. I know that there are at least 2 collections professionals on the board, so I’m waiting to see what they have to say. I must say that you, Mr. Hand did a damn fine job painting a clear picture point by point. We can’t have that here! Now jump back in that trench and be a smart ass!

9

You wouldn’t know it from my posting history, but I spend at least half of the time I’m logged on in GQ. If I have something usefull to contribute, I post. If I don’t, I don’t.

I rarely post in that forum, because I regret it when I do. Recently I posted an “answer” to a question about telephone dialing patterns and switching in the UK with a screed about the NANP and how switching works in the North America, and parts of the Pacific basin.

I was sort of like some tech support. I provided absolutely true information that was no help at all. I can understand your point.

That said, isn’t relatively easy to separate the wheat from the chaff?

10

Evidently I shouldn’t post in the Pit either, because that made exactly zero sense.

11

Reeder said:

You’re absolutely right that the statute of limitations can bar a lawsuit to collect upon a debt. However, the statute of limitations won’t begin to run on the credit card debt until the debtor becomes delinquent on the most recent charge. Credit card charges are part of one revolving line of credit. The chart from the link you helpfully provided (and I urge you to add to the GQ thread) can be as little as three years or as long as fifteen years (you should be looking at the “written contracts” column).

But there are two reasons I didn’t think this was helpful for the OP. First, the OP describes the brother as discontinuing payments a “couple” of years ago, which to me implies a short enough time period that, odds are, the statute has not yet run even if it’s on the short side. Remember, if the brother ever orally promised the credit card company or the collection agency that purchased the debt that he’d repay, that resets the clock.

Second, the OP implies that the sheriff is getting involved. If the collection agency is getting the sheriff involved to levy upon the assets (referred to as “attachment” in this context), then the brother will soon be receiving a summons and complaint. It’s really doubtful that the collection agency would bother with the expense of getting a default judgment if the suit was obviously barred by the statute of limitations. Moreover, even if the statute of limitations has already run, it may be that the defense thereby provided cannot be invoked unless the brother answers the complaint and raises the issue.

So, Reeder perhaps I was being a bit strong when I described your post raising the issue of the statute of limitations was “wrongly suggesting that the statute of limitations might apply.” I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have used such black-and-white terms but rather referred to my reservations about the applicability of the statute of limitations. I have to confess a bit of animosity because it was your last post in the thread that inspired this Pit thread.

12

Exgineer, you asked rhetorically, “isn’t [it] relatively easy to separate the wheat from the chaff [in GQ]?” Sometimes. But when one poster is saying X and another is saying not-X, isn’t this misleading for the completely uninformed?

13

The statute of limitations run from the last time you sent them money. If the limitatations runs three years and you send them money 2 years and 11 months later they start again. Credit card companies don’t put people in jail. They don’t go after people who don’t pay. Bad for the public image you know. Collection agencies don’t have legal grounds to prosecute people. If you would…please show me one cite where a non secured debt ever had a judgement rendered against it.

14

Reeder, you just don’t quit, do you? Read the link you just posted:

The OP makes it clear, later in the thread, that his brother was NOT threatened with jail, and pretty much everyone who counts recognizes it as a non-issue. The information given makes it quite likely that there has already been a judgement – that makes the statute of limitations wholly irrelevant.

Cite for judgements? You mean, besides the OP? Well, there’s this:
http://legalknowhow.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=544

But I don’t feel compelled to search endlessly for judgements to collect unsecured debt – most unsecured creditors never seek judgement because it ain’t worth it. But The Bum owes, IIRC, $15,000 – that’s enough to get a collection agency off its collective (heh) ass.

15

Yes, Mr. Hand, you have a good point.

I always assume that people have done at least a modicum of research on their own GQ questions before they post. Hell, how hard is it to crack a book, or even just use Google.

Maybe I’m hopelessly naive.

16

Yes.

However, the vast majority of the time, an inaccurate answer is corrected.

I see no problem.

17

The OP said the brother was in Ohio. So let’s look at Ohio law…

Ohio Revised Code § 1319.12
B) A collection agency with a place of business in this state may take assignment of another person’s accounts, bills, or other evidences of indebtedness in its own name for the purpose of billing, collecting, or filing suit in its own name as the real party in interest.

(D) A collection agency shall commence litigation for the collection of an assigned account, bill, or other evidence of indebtedness in a court of competent jurisdiction located in the county in which the debtor resides, or in the case of co-debtors, a county in which at least one of the co-debtors resides.

So collection agencies have the right to sue on the debt. As unsecured debt in default being rendered into a judgment, this happens all the time. Unsecured creditors actually race to do this, because they’ll take the debtor’s assets in the order they become lien creditors (which is the end result of the judicial process, just before they get the sheriff to act on the writ of execution). Becoming a lien creditor gives an unsecured creditor priority over other unsecured creditors who haven’t yet become lien creditors. Lien creditors can even have priority over secured creditors if the secured creditor did not properly perfect their security interest in the collateral (typically, by filing a financing statement in the appropriate filing office).

If you’re finding it hard to imagine unsecured creditors reducing their claims to judgment, don’t think of collection agencies. Think of tort victims; a tort victim who gets awarded a judgment is another kind of unsecured creditor. They get paid all the time.

Unsecured creditors reducing their claim to judgment is such a common occurrence that it’s actually hard to find a published case where this was the only issue. But it pops up in almost every bankruptcy proceeding, as when unsecured creditors figure out that a debtor is insolvent, they race to achieve priority over one another by reducing their claims to judgment. Here’s a relative simple example (I apologize that I can’t find these just out there on the web; I’m using Lexis): In re McNeely, 51 B.R. 816 (1985). Debtor owed a lot of money, unsecured, to Creditor. Before Debtor could file a bankruptcy petition, Creditor commenced litigation to reduce his claim to judgment, and so he got a prejudgment writ of attachment on Debtor’s real estate and bank accounts. While the summary judgment motion was pending in this litigation, Debtor filed for bankruptcy. For a more recent (albeit more complicated) example involving a debtor corporation and its debtor officer, in which the individual debtor owed a lot of money on an unsecured guarantee to a creditor which was then reduced to judgment, see In re Heleva, 2001 U.S. LEXIS 15845.

18

Nametag I agree that the calls can go on forever. But they won’t.

from your link…

Anyway, the law firm which placed the judgement… .

Since when can a law firm place a judgement? Is that the courts job?

And that’s 15k is spread over how many cards? Do you suppose they all used the same collection agency?

Hmmm?

19

Reeder, they probably do, as it would entail significant savings in administrative costs for collecting on the debt. Ohio law specifically enables this results.

Ohio Revised Code section 1319.2(H) provides:

20

Mr Hand…I stand corrected on the collection agency being able to sue. My apologies. The thing here is the debt, I would wager, is not all on one card. The total may be worth pursueing but not the total on each card.