Donnachaidh (1000+ posts) Thu Nov-03-11 01:40 PM
Original message
50 Ways to Leave Your Banker: What Happened When One Man Just Refused to Pay $80,000 in Credit Card
http://www.alternet.org/occupywallst/152938/50_ways_to_...
At last count, Steven Katz owed $80,000 on his six credit cards, and he has no intention of paying any of it off. In fact, he'd like to show you how to be like him—a "credit terrorist" in open revolt against the banking system.
Debtorboards.com ("Sue Your Creditor and Win!"), a five-year-old online forum where he's collected countless tricks and tactics for evading and repelling persistent creditors. He's written how-tos on shielding your assets from seizure, luring collection agencies into expensive lawsuits, and frustrating private investigators looking for debtors on the run. He's even infiltrated the bill collectors' forums, where he's been tagged a "credit jihadist" and his site's been called a "credit terrorist training camp," a label he embraces. "Debtorboards is one of the biggest and most successful temper tantrums ever," the 59-year-old Katz boasts. The site has more than 10,000 members—double what it had in 2009.
Katz wants the millions of Americans buried in debt to stop feeling guilty about not honoring their obligations. "People are brainwashed to think that paying a credit card is more important than paying for the necessities of life," he says. "Business and morality have nothing to do with each other, according to the bankers." One of Katz's mottos is "No one ever went to hell for not paying a debt."
He wasn't always an unrepentant debtor. When he first spoke to me from his tax and accounting business in a strip mall in Tucson, Arizona, he recalled how his first job in the '70s was tromping through Brooklyn making collections for a small loan company. He once threatened to take a woman's kids to an orphanage if she didn't pay her bills. He wasn't serious, but it worked.
More at the link --
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2235906So let me get this straight, honoring your debts and paying them is being brainwashed?
This idiot is basically condoning theft.
frazzled (1000+ posts) Thu Nov-03-11 01:49 PM
Response to Original message
1. What a goniff
(goniff = crook, swindler, cheat).
It's one thing to stand in opposition to the means used by banks and debt collectors to recover debt. It's another thing to advocate walking away from $80,000 of credit card debt like it's your god-given right. The suggestion is you can just go out and charge anything you want, and the evil banks should not expect you to pay for it.
Sorry, that's grand larceny. And the rest of us pay for these scofflaws.
That line of thinking is what the whole 99% movement is based on.
People borrowed money and don't want to pay it back.
justiceischeap (1000+ posts) Thu Nov-03-11 01:58 PM
Response to Reply #1
7. The US government doesn't pay it's debts, why should we? nt
It is hard to argue against that, other than if you have a sense of responsibility you will do your best to pay back your debts.
MrDiaz (356 posts) Thu Nov-03-11 03:09 PM
Response to Reply #7
41. it would be the perfect storm
to crash the entire economy. Hey everyone lets go get as many credit cards that we can spend all the money on whatever you please and refuse to pay any bills, lol yeah that is the dream economy right there buddy.
And the Tea Party was accused of terrorism for supposedly wanting the economy to crash.
Name Removed has lots of posts in this thread.
