{"id":102346,"date":"2020-07-17T09:34:15","date_gmt":"2020-07-17T13:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=102346"},"modified":"2020-07-17T09:35:45","modified_gmt":"2020-07-17T13:35:45","slug":"predatory-lending-a-final-settlement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=102346","title":{"rendered":"Predatory Lending – A Final Settlement"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Although this article was originally published on Bloomberg Businessweek in Dec 2017, it was recently republished.<\/p>\n

I thought this was valuable to make a post here because it shows some of parallel gumshoe work in hunting Stolen Valor thieves, especially when they use an alias, move from state to state, and keep changing their story.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Millions Are Hounded for Debt They Don\u2019t Owe. One Victim Fought Back, With a Vengeance<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Andrew Therrien wanted payback. He got it\u2014and uncovered a conspiracy.<\/em><\/p>\n

Cartwright hung up, then called back, mad. He said he wanted to meet face-to-face to teach Therrien a lesson.<\/p>\n

\u201cCome on by, asshole,\u201d Therrien says he replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will,\u201d Cartwright said, \u201cand I hope your wife is at home.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when he made the rape threat.<\/p>\n

Therrien got so angry he couldn\u2019t think clearly. He wasn\u2019t going to just let someone menace and disrespect his wife like that. He had to know who this Cartwright guy was, and his employer, too. Therrien wanted to make them pay.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Many decades ago, I fell on hard times and was subject to predatory practices for many years afterward.\u00a0 I did not realize that people sold debt.\u00a0 I learned some things.<\/p>\n<\/header>\n

I owed $49 from a cable bill I didn’t pay because of a deployment.\u00a0 I was single at the time.\u00a0 I tried to get it removed from my credit report upon my return from deployment, but the cable company had already sold the debt.\u00a0 Didn’t stop them from hooking me up again.\u00a0 The debt collection company went out of business and I couldn’t pay them even though I wanted to.<\/p>\n

Someone bought that debt and wanted me to pay it 12 years later.<\/p>\n

Check your state laws for statutes of limitations.\u00a0 Many times these old debts are invalid but the collection company is hoping you will send something, even $5, and once you do you reopen the entire account again and you now owe it.\u00a0 If you ask them to send you proof with your signature that you owe the debt, often this ends it.<\/p>\n

On another occasion, I was called about my student loan debt and I was out of work at the time.\u00a0 I owed the money, so was shuffling my feet expressing sorrow and a desire to pay but remorseful I could not provide certainty with my situation and any anticipated payment.\u00a0 The guy kept at it, and at it, and at it…<\/p>\n

Finally, and I don’t know where this came from but I asked:<\/p>\n

ME:<\/strong>\u00a0 When you were nine years old, what did you want to be when you grew up?<\/span><\/p>\n

DEBT COLLECTOR:<\/strong>\u00a0 This isn’t about me, this is about you.<\/span><\/p>\n

ME:<\/strong>\u00a0 No, it *is* about you. Most kids dream of being an astronaut or playing professional baseball, or becoming a doctor.\u00a0 Most little boys don’t dream of being a debt collector.<\/span><\/p>\n

DEBT COLLECTOR:<\/strong>\u00a0 We really need to get back to —<\/span><\/p>\n

ME:<\/strong>\u00a0 My point is, somewhere along the way something didn’t work out for you.\u00a0 That’s what recently happened to me… something didn’t work out for me.\u00a0 Hopefully, my situation is temporary.\u00a0 I didn’t hope and work toward being unemployed.\u00a0 So, try and understand.<\/span><\/p>\n

The words that came out of my mouth even surprised me.\u00a0 I think it was because he backed me in a corner and kept pressing.\u00a0 There was dead silence.\u00a0 We wrapped up the call amicably.\u00a0 I don’t know if I had an effect but I’d like to think he gave some thought to what I said.<\/p>\n

Those were debts that I owed, so perhaps apples and oranges.\u00a0 In Therrien’s case it all came to a conclusion.\u00a0 Many times it takes someone willing to put in the time.\u00a0 It defies logic, really.\u00a0 Many people find it hard to believe that there are people out there like this community that care and put so much time and resources into finding out the truth behind someone’s lies.<\/p>\n

Keep up the great work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Although this article was originally published on Bloomberg Businessweek in Dec 2017, it was recently republished. … Predatory Lending – A Final Settlement<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":663,"featured_media":102348,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[209,236],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-teh-stoopid","category-wtf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/663"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=102346"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102350,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102346\/revisions\/102350"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/102348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=102346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=102346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=102346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}