What are the consequences if you just quit paying your credit cards?

[LibertyEagle]

You can pay many federal and state taxes with a credit card. Who would you rather owe money too? Sweet enough?

The discussion was not about paying government. Government is an entirely different thing, altogether.

You thought libertarians were a hive mind?

No, but I thought they had principles. Thanks for setting me straight though.

[LibertyEagle]

[I'm not used to just walking away from bills I owe, but I don't hesitate to walk away from bull$#@!.

You didn't walk away from bills you owed. You walked away from some con artists.

[amy31416]

Yeah in Michigan just expect to get served and then a default judgement even if you try to fight it. They can garnish checking accounts with judgement in hand. As a business owner I've gotten judgements against people who didn't pay, it's a simple enough filing. Garnishing a checking account is a little tricky because you can pay a fee and hit whatever is in a specific account at that time. If there isn't anything there you can pay and try again but it's a per instant attempt and not like a running draw. So a little bit of a gamble.

Wow. That seems like it could be very easily abused.

I was looking into a contracting company that advertises incessantly (Hanson's) and they are so obviously a shady company that consistently rips people off that I wondered how they stay in business--seems they do a lot of suing.

[angelatc]

Yeah in Michigan just expect to get served and then a default judgement even if you try to fight it. They can garnish checking accounts with judgement in hand. As a business owner I've gotten judgements against people who didn't pay, it's a simple enough filing. Garnishing a checking account is a little tricky because you can pay a fee and hit whatever is in a specific account at that time. If there isn't anything there you can pay and try again but it's a per instant attempt and not like a running draw. So a little bit of a gamble.

Very interesting. Let me ask you this: how do you know if the defendant has a checking account? Or does your lawyer handle all that for you?

And how is it cost effective for small sums? I can't get a lawyer to talk to me for less than $250 it seems, so I can't imagine the fees for filing the forms and then the follow up being worth much in the way of legal expenses.

[presence]

Can they garnish a crypto account? A mason jar? A gold bar buried in the state forest?

[LibertyEagle]

What you are describing is libertinism; not libertarianism.

BS back at you.

Failure to fulfill one's end of a contract if one had full honest intention of fulfilling it originally is not theft. Sure "your legal person" still "owes the money" but that doesn't mean when your "flesh and bones self" continues to feed your "flesh and bones family" before one pays the civil debts of your "legal person" is "theft". You're way out in the world of debtors prison if you believe such is a criminal theft.

However, borrowing money with the FRAUDULENT INTENTION of not paying it back IS theft, but one can certainly sleep in good conscience knowing there is no fraud or crime in failing to be able to pay your debts due to misfortune. CC companies enter CIVIL contracts with known risks. Failure of the borrower to maintain liquidity is a risk they take.





Never feel sorry for fictitious, state incorporated, bailout pumped, "too big to fail" legalized entity, fractional-reserve, multinational, 80 pages of fine print that means anything they want it to mean, fiat bank.



F them.



My advice if you are suffering from way of life endangering financial misfortune and are already in a "default rate" hole you'll never buy your way out of...

Feed your family 1st.
Stabilize yourself in cash, crypto, tangibles that cannot be seized, and precious metals 2nd.
Manage your cashflow wisely and ditch your unneeded expenses; read netflix, home shopping network habit, and ice cream night.
Get yourself 3 months ahead on life expenses; food, rent, utitilities.
Get a beater vehicle, paid cash in your name.
From that stable ground; if it takes a few months or a few years...
Concern yourself with your credit last; if need be don't bother with it until you can afford a lawyer.

Realize in the mean time there will be some rough repercussions... but nothing that hard work, humility, and cash can't get you out of.


If you owe $2500 a month in unsecured debt and $1000 a month to your landlord and the grocery store, but you just took a pay cut from 70K a year to 18K... Don't think you're a hero giving that grocery and roof money to Visa while your kids go hungry.



Just because your legal person owes a debt
doesn't mean your living self
is a quasi chattel slave in

peonage

to that debt.

[kpitcher]

Very interesting. Let me ask you this: how do you know if the defendant has a checking account? Or does your lawyer handle all that for you?

And how is it cost effective for small sums? I can't get a lawyer to talk to me for less than $250 it seems, so I can't imagine the fees for filing the forms and then the follow up being worth much in the way of legal expenses.

No need for a lawyer if a customer stiffed you for a bill and you want to handle it yourself. A small filing fee gets you a hearing before a judge. A process server was less than $100 to make sure they got served. It was less than $50 for filing last time I did it but it's been a few years. You see a judge, present bills and they determine if it's a valid claim. If defendant doesn't show up you automatically win. You can tack on reasonable court expenses to the bill also. It's a typical small claims court.

With the judgement in hand you can contact a repo person and they can grab any vehicle in public that person owns to help cover the debt - even if the debt wasn't for the vehicle. I forget the fee details for a checking account garnishment.