Consumer Law

Another Story On Zombie Debt Haunting Consumers

By M. Stan Herring

It is good when the untold stories are told - when people can see what is really going on with real people. This Newsday.com article tells about ordinary people who are being hounded - haunted as the article puts it - by debt collectors and junk debt buyers. Often the accounts ("zombie debt") that these abusive agencies are trying to collect are well beyond the time limit to ever sue or they were long ago discharged in bankruptcy or they were created by identity theft.

The author of the article, Richard J. Dalton, Jr.,, notes that

Mullen, 46, says she doesn't remember the debt and has challenged it. Others who have received such notices say the purported old debts are a result of identity theft.

Many credit card companies have started selling delinquent accounts to collectors to boost quarterly earnings, according to a report by Kaulkin Ginsberg, a Rockville, Md.-based adviser on debt collection.

The collectors then resell some of that debt to other collection agencies, accounting for $100 billion in credit card debt sold annually, according to the March 2006 report.

Full post as published by Alabama Consumer Blog on February 09, 2008 (boomark / email).