Deadbeats? What about single parents doing everything they can to get by? First generation college students trying to change their lives? People who develop serious illness? Cancer?
Debtors prison? Yeah... take people who owe money... and put them in jail... where they don't earn ANY money AND give law abiding citizens a criminal record - which would alter their ability to gain any substantial employment.. NOT TO MENTION putting regular people away with actual criminals is basically sending normal people to crime school.
I'm a medical student, one year away from joining Doctors Without Borders, and making a differences in some of the darkest places in the world. BUT, because Sprint decided to charge me an extra months service- without my knowledge- they decided to turn me into collections for 56.43. So the world is a better place if I am in debtors prison because Sprint is immoral and flat out wrong, rather than serving people that would otherwise have no access to healthcare?
I realize I am an extreme case, but I also know that I am not alone. Some people do take full advantage of the current system. THANKFULLY, we have things called credit scores that follow people, and alter the interest rates they pay, or even their ability to borrow money or finance.
I think you should reconsider some of the conclusions you have drawn... for your own good.
Sue: Absolutely DO NOT give these people any information about your Aunt...pass the number on to the Estate Lawyer and have them determine IF your Aunt owes money to someone. If it is a computer bot calling; they are not listening to the message, so it falls on deaf ears or no ears. If in doubt ALWAYS let the lawyer handle it. Remove the VM saying she is deceased and replace with the lawyers number to call. There are scammers out there looking for accounts of the deceased, so they can STEAL their identity. PROTECT her name even after her passing.
As far as the person who was discussing "deadbeats" I agree with everyone else here who responded speaking to how hard it is to make ends meet these days...not beign able to spread money across all their bills doesn't make people deadbeats. Deadbeats just don't pay at all EVER and keep racking up debt. Then there are those of us who are trying to meet their bills while the government (Fed/State/City) keeps raising taxes, adding taxes and EVERYTHING costs more! Until you know a person's story...don't judge them.
I have gotten rid of all of my credit cards, pay only in cash now...and I STILL get these calls.
The person who called my had an Indian accent, long delay like he was calling from India. My guess is that the calls are made automatically and only if someone answers does a human then come on the line; the calls may be routed through a switch in NYC to make it look like they are coming from there, but I doubt it. He asked me something like I had called them about problems with my phone or internet service? I actually have been having trouble with my cell phone but was calling ATT and always spoke to an American, so it could be a coincidence or they've have access to ATT server information.
I RECVD A CALL THIS MORNING FROM THIS NUMBER. my caller id read spanco telesystems. I
googled the name and they are a company out of MUMBAI INDIA i did not answer and they did not
leave a msg on the ans mach. don't give out any info. i bought some vitamins on line one time out of florida and all of sudden i was getting 200.00 charges on my debit card from some place in Thailand
i had to call my bank,file a fraud charge and change my debit card number, the money (600.00) was
returned to my account.
about the same thing happened to me. I called about my internet next thing I know I get a guy with heavy accent of India or some place asking me questions.