Spider-Barf.

[B E C K]

Your kind words are some how diluted by the fact that I know we are almost the same age. By making me feel better about my age, you are also making you feel better about your age. But I'll take the kindness when I can get it.

Well, I didn't really feel bad about it until you said something just now.  Haha.  I still feel and seemingly act relatively young.  I never get any flack about being old until the actual numbers come up.  Like when I mentioned watching the Simpson Christmas Special as a nine-year old kid and my then co-workers were all "shit, i wasn't even BORN yet".  Either I'm always surrounded by the most age sensitive people in the world or they genuinely do not detect I'm nearly 30 and I really don't think it's the former.  So that there tends to make me feel better w/o trying to make you feel better.

[B E C K]

True :-( Did oyu ever hear anyone saying that they were going to take them to jail? I love whn I hear stories about that cause thats so illegal (and not true)

I had some debtor's mom freaking out because someone at my job told her there was a warrant out for the arrest of her son when one didn't exist.  Other than that, not really.  I would usually confirm what I could on my screen (which was a rare occurance to actually have concrete warrant info) and tell them to double chell with whoever our client was.  A law firm after money is not the best source for warrant/jail info anyway, but a lot of them had a hard time understanding that.

Also Nuri, was the company you were working for able to get the phone logs from the debtors? (and by this call them and their friends). I'm still trying to find out how that company (that called me asking for my roommate's brother) found out my phone number

Are you sure your roommate's brother never made a phone call from there?  Or if your roommate made a call from there posing as the brother or on the brother's behalf?  We'd get a lot of people calling from friends/neighbors/relatives phones and half the time it was some nosy relative or someone posing as the debtor.

Where I worked the number was logged.  We would ask point blank what the number belonged to and if they said it was their home, cell, or whatever, it's saved as that number.

Firstly, a lot of people lied about the origin of the number.  It was not our job to double-chell if that was true. 
Second, even if they told the truth, the other info would sometimes turn out useless and we'd be stuck calling "friend's house" or whatever to find the debtor.  Also, we'd ask for contact information so maybe the brother gave the number out as a contact number. 

If the brother never lived there, what I listed above would be ways a firm like ours would get the number.  Assuming he never got mail at your address, which if he ever did provides a third way since there was different department that'd look up addresses and try to find corresponding phone numbers.  Also assuming your roommate and the brother didn't have similar names or other information that would lead someone investigating the number to believe that number belonged to the brother.

[Rama]

Well, I didn't really feel bad about it until you said something just now.  Haha.  I still feel and seemingly act relatively young.  I never get any flack about being old until the actual numbers come up.  Like when I mentioned watching the Simpson Christmas Special as a nine-year old kid and my then co-workers were all "shit, i wasn't even BORN yet".  Either I'm always surrounded by the most age sensitive people in the world or they genuinely do not detect I'm nearly 30 and I really don't think it's the former.  So that there tends to make me feel better w/o trying to make you feel better.

I tend to feel the same now as I felt at 20, unless someone mentions it to me. I guess 30 IS the new 20 right? Right? Someone agree with me.

[Fiero]

About to turn 26, so I am agreeing. I would mich rather be 16.

[blanktoe]

  i wish..

[Faye Valentine]

 

If the brother never lived there, what I listed above would be ways a firm like ours would get the number.  Assuming he never got mail at your address, which if he ever did provides a third way since there was different department that'd look up addresses and try to find corresponding phone numbers.  Also assuming your roommate and the brother didn't have similar names or other information that would lead someone investigating the number to believe that number belonged to the brother.

OMG YES!! we would get his collection letters delivered to us, and my cellphone's address was the apt so that could have happened! I thought that maybe the collection agency o law firm got his call records from the cellphone company or something, cause they can do that right>?

Aslo, I was under the impression that the only way you couldnt get an arrest warrant for owing a debt, thats why it made it illegal to tell people they were going to jail

[Fiero]

You can get a warrant if the debt is to the government, but I do not remember if it is only IRS or any government debt. You can not get a warrant for credit card debt, bank loans, etc. IIRC, natch.

[Faye Valentine]

Also if you owe child support. Actually , now that I think of it, you CAN get a bench warrant if they sue you in court for not paying your student/credit card loan and you dont go to court. Then yeah.

[Fiero]

But that is a warrant for missing court, not for refusing to pay your loan.

[B E C K]

About to turn 26, so I am agreeing. I would mich rather be 16.

I would NOT want to be that young a teenager again... or more specifically subjected to high school again.  Especially not in this day and age.  Maybe 18 again, starting college and not wasting so much time like I did.  I think that'd be kinda sweet.

[B E C K]

OMG YES!! we would get his collection letters delivered to us, and my cellphone's address was the apt so that could have happened! I thought that maybe the collection agency o law firm got his call records from the cellphone company or something, cause they can do that right>?

Sometimes it's as simple as popping the address into a website somewhere and just getting the number for free.  But if the cell number was the apt# and he got letters, they got the number by looking up the address and finding that number.

Aslo, I was under the impression that the only way you couldnt get an arrest warrant for owing a debt, thats why it made it illegal to tell people they were going to jail

In general practice we were not permitted in anyway to threaten them with jail, only--in specific cases--to politely inform them that there is a warrant and their city/county is free to act upon it and arrest them should their debt go unpaid.  The firm I worked for did government debts so if the client wanted to issue a warrant, it was very much legal and permitted.  Missing court a.k.a. FTA-Failure to Appear was a common way ppl got warrants.  Sometimes ppl had paid late and it triggered a failure to appear anyway, which caused problems as you could imagine.  In some places, running the red light camera and not paying it in time created an automatic warrant.  I think Kansas City, Kansas was one of them.

[Fiero]

I would NOT want to be that young a teenager again... or more specifically subjected to high school again.  Especially not in this day and age.  Maybe 18 again, starting college and not wasting so much time like I did.  I think that'd be kinda sweet.

Yeah, but I would need to go back to tenth to not drop out.

[Sam]

I've realized recently that I'm approaching my 31st birthday.  I'm sadly getting to the age where I should probably go to the doctor for a chell-up even if I'm feeling fine.  My invincible 20's are over.

[Derrick]

Except even 20 year olds die of cancer.

Baww, you're dying. We all are. Why worry?

[Faye Valentine]

In general practice we were not permitted in anyway to threaten them with jail, only--in specific cases--to politely inform them that there is a warrant and their city/county is free to act upon it and arrest them should their debt go unpaid. 

But there's no jail for debtors anymore, what do you mean by a warrant then?

[B E C K]

Yeah, but I would need to go back to tenth to not drop out.

Ah-ha, I see.  That's fair.

[B E C K]

But there's no jail for debtors anymore, what do you mean by a warrant then?

Warrant for arrest.  I don't know how long they can hold you but they can still arrest you.  In the call center I worked out, everyone hated making TX calls because the people would always want to sit out their debts in the pokey whereas everybody loved FL because DLs would get suspended like nobody's business and people were always trying to get them reinstated.

Perhaps some articles of interest:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/opinion/06mon4.html?_r=1
http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/article991963.ece

In the United States, it is unconstitutional to incarcerate someone solely for failing to pay a debt. Florida officials get around this by claiming the defendants are going to jail not for their debts but for violating a court order. That is what you would call a self-serving technicality.

[Fiero]

Except even 20 year olds die of cancer.

Baww, you're dying. We all are. Why worry?

But as you grow older the chances of death increase.

[Derrick]

But as you grow older the chances of death increase.

I would say moving to Africa is worse for you.

[Fiero]

That is not the point.

[Derrick]

Yeah it is. America rules.

[Faye Valentine]

But there's no jail for debtors anymore, what do you mean by a warrant then?

Warrant for arrest.  I don't know how long they can hold you but they can still arrest you.  In the call center I worked out, everyone hated making TX calls because the people would always want to sit out their debts in the pokey whereas everybody loved FL because DLs would get suspended like nobody's business and people were always trying to get them reinstated.

Perhaps some articles of interest:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/opinion/06mon4.html?_r=1
http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/article991963.ece

In the United States, it is unconstitutional to incarcerate someone solely for failing to pay a debt. Florida officials get around this by claiming the defendants are going to jail not for their debts but for violating a court order. That is what you would call a self-serving technicality.

But court costs is not the same as the debts collected by collection agencies. Those articles seem to talk about court debt, not another kind of debt! I also noticed how most people being send to prison are poor and they don't know about their rights. So unfair!

[B E C K]

We did collect for unpaid court costs.  It wouldn't flat out say "court costs" but sometimes the amounts that made the total of, say, $180, would be itemized and it would say "court fee 40.40" or something like that.  Like I said the company I worked for was not a collection agency but a law firm that would try to collect on past due amounts so I don't know if collection agencies do their job any differently.

[Faye Valentine]

OOOOOOOOO ok at the beginning I thought you were referring to other kind of debts like CC or student loans, etc.

[B E C K]

Nah, I don't know anything about the collection of those.  Besides the fact that I owe some of each.

[Faye Valentine]

I just found out I owe 80bucks for some stupid vaccine I was told was for free! fuuuuck. got a call from the collection agency hahaa i jynxed myself

[Merla]

I'm sorry but that dude is just gross (for Spiderman that is).   Hollywood has pretty much killed my Spiderman fantasies.  Well at least there is still The Flash that is until Hollywood messes him up too.   

[Rama]

Green Lantern is looking....ehhhh...interesting.

[B E C K]

Those lines on his suit kinda freak me out.

[Fiero]

I will force myself to enjoy Green Lantern.