Quote:
Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague
I thought I had addressed this? Let's leave aside the existence of free legal clinics that deal in stuff exactly like this every day. You don't need a lawyer. If you show up to court, and the other side fails to prove its case - for example, by not having the loan documents handy, or other convincing evidence that you owe what they say you owe - you don't even have to say a word. The case is getting thrown out. Now, if you want to say that there should be a mechanism in place for you to be better compensated for the waste of your time or even a penalty for going to trial with lawsuits that have no reasonable prospect of success, I'm open to those ideas. But this does not justify ignoring lawsuits. It should be pretty obvious that that is a terrible idea.
Moreover, even if you were right, from a principled standpoint, this only applies in cases where the person in question doesn't actually owe the money. The bookkeeping may not be good, and debt purchasers may just be buying a spreadsheet, but that's just bad records practice on their part. There are obviously exceptions, but most of the lines in that spreadsheet weren't pulled out of thin air. Those are bad records, but underlying those bad records are actual receivables on actual debt that people actually borrowed.
If you go to court to defend a lawsuit over a debt you actually owe, and win, it's you who gamed the system. You borrowed money and didn't pay it back. If you don't, if you ignore the lawsuit (for still no good reason I can see), and the creditor gets a default judgment against you... well, you borrowed money and didn't pay it back. That's what lawsuits are for.
My interpretation of the point of the piece was "the debt resale industry is inherently sleazy and corrupt, profiting off the backs of innocent people using underhanded shady tactics. Basically, they're a bunch of goat pimps."
Despite my protestations, as Resalien said, I haven't really stopped... but obviously we have different ideas about what is "irrelevant". Also, what the definition of "semantics" is; but I'll just stick with the OED on that one.
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CHL, I think you are underestimating a couple of factors. Firstly, the fear of the uninitiated in the legal system. I think there are many people who are not educated on our system, are terrified of the prospect of showing up to court and are concerned about the cost of lawyers. In particular, if the debt had been cleared, the respondent might think, "well this is bogus, I don't need to waste my time". The piece specifically mentioned bad book keeping. If all there is one line on a spreadsheet, you don't think there might be errors? I don't think you can dismiss the idea of someone ignoring a lawsuit as someone who is simply a moron.
I also disagree with your assertion that it is the debtor that is gaming the system if he or she fights a lawsuit in which he or she owes money. Again, it said right in the piece that there could be very legitimate reasons why the lawsuit should be tossed: Could be beyond the statute of limitations, perhaps the debt was extinguished through bankruptcy. That is the law, it isn't gaming the system, I am surprised you would use that terminology.