Full Speed Ahead For Zombie Debt Purchasers, Despite Lacking Proof Of Actual Debtor Or Debt, Significant Paperwork

Scripps Howard News Service reports:

• For decades, credit-card companies and other firms would eventually give up after attempting to collect from deadbeat customers. Now, companies are packaging and selling many of those overdue accounts for pennies on the dollar to debt collectors. The collectors then aggressively pursue the debtors to repay, or they turn around and resell those same debts to other collection firms. This secondary debt market has mushroomed in recent years into a $60 billion industry. But the explosive growth has been accompanied by concerns over the business practices of the debt collectors.

• Government officials and consumer watchdogs question the industry's often-shoddy recordkeeping, and say overly aggressive collectors sometimes break the law when going after old debts. "There are people who are attempting to get debt from consumers when they have no proof who the actual consumer is, no proof about the actual debt or the actual contract that incurred the debt, yet that has not stopped the debt-collection industry from going full steam ahead," says Ira Rheingold, executive director of the National Association of Consumer Advocates.

For more, see Bad Debts Have Become Big Business.

In a related story, see What Consumers Can Do When Debt Collectors Call.