Posted on 12/19/2006 6:52:35 AM PST by A. Pole
Sheriffs in three Massachusetts counties that once made a business of towing vehicles on behalf of unscrupulous debt collectors have adopted new rules to treat consumers more fairly and have sharply cut back on the common practice of seizing vehicles from beleaguered debtors.
[...]
In Norfolk County, deputy sheriffs are no longer seizing vehicles from consumers whose debt results from medical or dental expenses or in cases in which the amount owed is less than $1,500.
"We will no longer seize cars over medical bills, no matter what the amount," Sheriff Michael G. Bellotti said, calling the practice inappropriate because medical services are not a discretionary purchase.
[...]
And in Plymouth County, the Sheriff's Department has adopted an even more striking shift: treating debtors with simple consideration. The deputy sheriff now writes to anyone whose vehicle is about to be seized, said spokesman John Birtwell .
The change was made after the Globe reported that many consumers have no idea they are being sued for debt or that a debt collector has a court judgment to seize their property.
[...]
Current law, which is decades old, aims to protect a consumer's primary mode of transportation but only up to $700. State Senator Marc R. Pacheco also has filed a bill, which he plans to refile in the next session, that would raise the auto exemption to $2,600, with regular increases based on the cost-of-living index.
Robert J. Hobbs , deputy director of the National Consumer Law Center in Boston, said he thinks the exemption should go even further. As part of a package of debt-collection reforms his group is preparing to present to legislators, he suggests that every family ought to be able to keep one vehicle safe from collectors, no matter its value.
[...]
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Unfortunately you are probably right.
Well its Massachusetts, where you can get away with murder if your name is Kennedy.
"How many 2007 Escalades owners default on debts smaller than $1500 and have one car for the whole family? Zero?"
The key word here is "owners". Few people who drive Escalades, or any new car for that matter, do not "own" the vehicle. They are most likely making payment for 60 months.
When my son & his wife boast that they "own" two homes, they get this response from dad...."No, you don't own them, you're in debt up to your ears for 30 years while 'buying' them."
My personal method of detecting a liberal is noticing whether a person is generous with other people's money (but not their own). A good book was written about this phenomenon entitled "Do As I Say, Not As I Do" about the lives of Teddy Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, Streisand and the like.
Here we have people moralizing about how it is wrong for other people, such as doctors and hospitals, to auction off the cars of deadbeats. You are moralizing about the minimum wage (Forcing others to pay higher than the market wage) and employer health insurance (Forcing others to absorb the cost and responsibility of other people's health).
I think employment should be encouraged by setting the minimum wage on a state to state basis. If one state sets the wage too high then employers will flee to a free market state that has no or low minimum wage scales. Likewise with forced health insurance. I look after my health because I am responsible for my medical bills, not some employer or third party.
Remember, a liberal (like Teddy Kennedy or Pelosi) feels good about himself because they are generous with other people's money (but not their own), via minimum wage or forced health insurance. Best you re-examine your agreement with the position of these hypocrites - which may not make you feel good about yourself.
Apparently Peter Schweizer spins a good yarn but doesn't get high marks for accuracy.
And Monsignor Brenkle says the Pelosis pay a $1.25 an hour more than workers at Napa's biggest union winery.
I asked Peter Schweizer, the Hoover Research fellow, if he had researched those facts before he called Pelosi a hypocrite.
Peter Schweizer: "It's really for her to explain why there is this inconsistency. It's not my responsibility to go and find out how every single particular circumstance is handled on the Pelosi vineyard."
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=politics&id=4804677
I am no defender of Nancy Polosi, but happen to live near the Napa Valley and know that the region is a destination of choice for agricultural workers because pay and working conditions are significantly better than others areas.
Here we have people moralizing about how it is wrong for other people, such as doctors and hospitals, to auction off the cars of deadbeats. You are moralizing about the minimum wage (Forcing others to pay higher than the market wage) and employer health insurance (Forcing others to absorb the cost and responsibility of other people's health).
Its not my intent to moralize. Unless we live in an ideal world with perfect distribution, there will always be people at the bottom of the pay scale. Its well and good to insist that people take responsibility for themselves and their bills, but how do we rationally make that happen unless the means (pay and/or benefits) to make it possible is available even for those at the bottom.
The other alternatives are to decide that those who can't pay for services don't get services, or that the debt can never be erased except through repayment.
Best you re-examine your agreement with the position of these hypocrites - which may not make you feel good about yourself.
My position doesn't come from agreeing with liberals, but from having grown up in the Lutheran Church where the Biblical principals of care for the poor and debt forgiveness were taught.
I have no problem with people or organizations that want to be charitable (Biblically or otherwise) with their own money - I have problems with people or governments that force other people to give away their own money or property as is seen with the EMTALA law that is bankrupting hospitals throughout SoCal with freebies to illegals.
There is no free lunch - deadbeats and illegals should pay for the services they use before all the emergency rooms in California close down. If seizing the cars of deadbeats keeps the doctors paid and the emergency rooms open - that's fine by me.
Well, there is an aspect what they "deserve" and there is an aspect how much of hospital bill will be covered by this $700 car. Even if sold at that price, the hospital will see a fraction of it. The the extracted value might be not enough to cover the expense of collecting.
Now, what about consequences like depriving the "guilty" party of means of transportation? You might need car to get to work. Of course, you can apply for Welfare to Work vouchers and get subsidized transportation. This is a more costly solution for all of us.
The sad fact is that indigent persons will not be able to cover the cost of US medical care no matter how you slice and dice it. If you want to be really tough and consistent why don't you propose straightforward denial of medical care to the people who cannot afford it? Instead you go around and engage into what Polish people call "walenie kotka za pomoca mlotka" (whacking a cat with a hammer).
There is no free lunch - deadbeats and illegals should pay for the services they use before all the emergency rooms in California close down. If seizing the cars of deadbeats keeps the doctors paid and the emergency rooms open - that's fine by me.
We have deadbeat employers that hire illegal immigrants because they demand less in pay and benefits. If it weren't for these deadbeat employers, willing to transfer employment costs to taxpayers in order to improve their own bottom line, then perhaps there would be fewer illegals burdening our health care system. And if there were fewer low wage immigrants for deadbeat employers to hire, then maybe citizens and documented workers would suddenly be worth enough to have insurance.
Or we could blame the deadbeat American consumer that believes he has a natural right to low, low prices regardless of the cost to the low, low wage worker or his fellow American taxpayers?
You are right, there is no free lunch. The problem is that most of us think we're paying the full tab while almost all of us are being subsidized somewhere along the line.
I did not say there was. My point is that it is possible to cheat a deadbeat, and unscrupulous to cheat anybody. For a $700 debt, grab a $3000 car, and sell it for $750 to your brother - this is just plain theft.
A scrupulous process would notify the person that the car was being held, give them a chance to pay up, and then sell through one of the public auction sites, not a quicky sheriffs sale where only the debt collector's brother shows up to bid.
These guys were unscrupulous.
Maybe the deadbeat should be penalized above and beyond the debt, but punishment on behalf of the public is not the job of the debt collector.
These are not just deadbeats - they used hospital services, were billed for payment, did not pay, and were served with a summons and complaint. A court entered judgment against the no-pay AND THEN the car was seized and sold for the debt. This is a scrupulous process - how could the judgment debtor not know that the hospital wanted to be paid for its services? Apparently they ignored the collection letters, the collection calls, the process server, the court notices and only AFTER the car is seized did they realize they owed money to the doctor? Give me a break - this is a sob story.
I knew a guy who drove drunk on his motorcycle (he was a bartender), broke his leg in the ensuing accident, ran up $6,000 in medical bills and made no effort to pay the doctor who gave him medical care. He got all kinds of letters requesting payment - he blew them off.
Gee, I wonder what happens if you stiff a lawyer?
The law is pretty much on the side of valid debt collection. By the time a sheriffs department decides to back off supporting a bill collector, the bill collector has gone way overboard in attacking the defenseless. The term 'unscrupulous' is probably way too polite for what they were doing.
The way I read the original article, the debtor wasn't informed of the court case, nor the judgement, nor was there a process server, nor any collection calls from the agency that grabbed their car (though there may have been from the original creditor). The first they knew that the debt collection agency had bought their debt was that their car was gone.
Deadbeats might be bad, but 'scrupulous' is not a term I've ever heard used to talk about the reputations of the debt collection business.
True - scrupulous is not a term to be associated with debt collectors; it should be applied to court procedures and papers. A debtor is entitled to notice of legal action against him and a right to be heard - these are constitutional protections of due process of law. Court clerks are usually scrupulous, in my experience, in making sure the papers are filled out correctly - perhaps Massachusetts is different than California.
When it comes to corruption, the whole North East seems to be different from the rest of the country. It was quite an eye-opener when we first moved here from Minnesota - it seemed that every week some mayor or city clerk or councilman was getting arrested. It's still going steady 20 years later; and getting more interesting as the current Federal DA for the area is catching bigger fish.
A recent case in NJ had a deputy sheriff seize 3 cars from an auto dealer. In the sheriff's auction, notice for which was only posted at the sheriff's office, only the auto dealer on one other bidder showed up. The other bidder ran the bid well above the price of the cars. The auto dealer had to leave to get more money. After he left, the first bidder canceled his bid, and a relative of the deputy bought the 3 cars (worth about $150 thousand, or so - it was 3 luxury imports) for a few hundred dollars. The auto dealer is out his 3 cars, and still owes the original debt, which was a few thousand dollars on a previous disputed sales contract. I can't find the original article now, but I think the disputed sales contract might have been with a relative of the deputy.
What I remember from the article is that the Sheriff's department claimed to have followed the letter of the law, and it seemed as if the local judiciary agreed. I would have thought that the actions of the straw buyer would have raised an eyebrow, but apparently that was ok here.
So, that's the background I used to interpret the Mass. story. If the Sheriff's dept felt they went too far in support of the debt collector, I think they really went way too far.
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