The zombie apocalypse is real, and it’s eating your money. Well, it’s trying to anyway, and you might unknowingly be helping them.
If you’ve every received a phone call or letter in the mail demanding payment for a debt that is years old, you might have unfortunately have zombies knocking at your door. Some debt collectors have a way of resurrecting debt that is so old that is might actually be outside of the statutes of limitations for collection. We call that zombie debt.
A tactic that is often used is trying to reset the clock on an old debt. How do they do this? By trying to get you to make a mistake. If you acknowledge the debt by admitting that you owe, make a partial payment, or ignore a lawsuit, you might have just given a debt collector ammunition against you.
For more about this practice, check out the video below.
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That’s really interesting! I never knew that there would be ANY kind of timeline where your debt would go away, I just figured you owe what you owe! Surprising!
Thanks for sharing:)
The article that I link to has a link with statutes for debt. Interesting, isn’t it?
Some idiot debt collector tried this with a “debt” I didn’t actually owe. (It was a single tax return mistake on my part–putting ONE NUMBER accidentally ont he wrong line–followed by a great deal of idiocy from New Mexico’s revenue department that took a VERY long time to correct.) I sent the proof that I owed nothing to the debt collector, who acknowledged that they received it and I was correct….and then promptly proceeded to ask me to make a payment anyway! I said, “If you’re stupid enough to realize that I owe nothing and then to ask me to pay imoney anyway, maybe you’re stupid enough to send me money instead. You have my address, right? So why don’t you send me a check–say, $500? How about that?”
He didn’t bite, but at least he stopped trying to get me to write the company a check.
What a way to turn the tables! Good for you.
Those are the ones that suck and if you actually start paying them you are stuck basically. It starts the cycle over and you wont get any good advice from them. They simply suck!
There are actually times when it makes more sense to NOT pay.