Greetings P.F.
I created this user so that I could ask this question away from my usual reddit username, because it's a little (a lot?) shameful and sort of uncomfortable. But here it is:
I am a successful business professional with a great job, making well into the six-figures, some years approaching $160K. I have a few rental properties and have passive income, and a good size retirement account, and I'm not yet to age 40. So things are going well.
Back about 7 years ago I was in a different place financially, and I resorted to online payday lending on occasion to make ends meet. Specifically, I took one of those crazy stupid Western Sky loans with a 1000% interest rate. I actually paid back a $3K loan (not technically a payday loan) in about 2 months and so only paid something like $1200 interest on it. Of course I was even further behind then on my other obligation, but they called me back and actually offered me a $10K loan (at 700% interest I think). I said yes, got the money, and went on a repayment plan that made my monthly payment something the ballpark of $600.
After two months the attorney general of my state had a staff attorney reach out to me, and they let me know that Western Sky was on the verge of being sued and probably shutdown. They took all my information, got copies of all my documents, and I was original plaintiff (not sure if that's the right word, but my name was used in some legal filings by the attorney general).
At the same time, I got a private attorney to look at the loan documentation, and what he said was basically the way they are setup is that the loan is structured as though it happens on an Indian Reservation, and supposedly not subject to State laws regarding lending regulations. They would be bound by Federal laws like truth-in-lending and Regulation Z, which they appeared to have followed. The loan documents stated that both parties agreed to follow tribal law and not any State or Federal law in resolving disputes. So basically with my attorney's help, I defaulted on the loan, changed my phone number, blocked their mail, changed my bank account, and walked away. Eventually a real collection agency contacted me and threatened to ruin my credit and sue me for the debt, which was by then doubled on paper. My attorney wrote them a letter and told them we would fight any attempt to use US Courts to collect the debt, which they ignored. They filed a negative account on my credit report. My attorney filed a suit immediately against the collection agency, and sent letters to the credit reporting bureaus, and was successful in getting the collection agency to "dead file" the debt and the credit reporting agencies to remove the negative remarks.
After legal fees and what I repaid, I ended up positive about $7K from that $10K loan. A year or so later, so I guess about 3 or 4 years ago, the FTC and several State's attorney generals announced that Western Sky was out of business, closed down, and that anything not already collected was forgiven in most cases, and that's that. My state's attorney general actually got me a small refund of like $600 on the interest I had paid that exceeded State law.
Okay, so that's the backstory. Since then, what I have found is that there are hundreds of online revolving/payday lenders who claim to be based on Indian reservations, running the same attempted scam. They have almost all been cut off from the US credit system, and can't really pull credit reports. They use old-school pay and employment verification and have their own blacklists, but mostly are disconnected lenders making lending decisions independently.
So for the last few years, when I feel like it, I'll go on a kick of applying for and getting these loans from whatever new lenders I can find, and then immediately defaulting on them. I'll get the funds by ACH, and then put a stop payment on that name from so they can't pull any money out. I add them preemptively to my email, cell and land-line block list, and then just forget them. I know it's wrong, I suppose, but at this point I'm "up" about $30K from these scammy and probably illegal lenders. I watch my credit carefully, and feel pretty confident they have no avenue for collection. One or two have sold the accounts to US-based real collection agencies who could collect, but I just write the collection agency a letter promising not to pay, and guaranteeing legal action if they report negative credit information. And they just fold up and go away.
My questions:
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I've been sitting on this money, but it's gotten to the point that I am ready to do something with it.
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Is this all going to come crashing down on me?
Thanks in advance.
Submitted July 27, 2017 at 03:50PM by miscnaysayer http://ift.tt/2tNngco
