Stop Giving People a False Sense of Security

Posted by Judgmental (12.230.226.253) on December 22, 2003 at 22:26:44:

At the risk of creating static, I feel this needs to be said.

Too much of the advice given on this board is given from the point of view that the Creditor can not take a particular action against the Debtor simply because the particular action in question happens to be against the law.

This is completely FALSE.

The fact that the action being discussed is against the law, DOES NOT STOP CREDITORS FROM DOING IT.

Creditors, collection agencies, lawyers, burglars, people who harm animals, etc ROUTINELY BREAK THE LAW EVERYDAY. These law-breakers shift the burden of responsibility on to the victim of their actions to "sort it out".

The only thing the "against the law" part does for the Debtor is provide the Debtor with grounds to challenge and hopefully UNDO the harm caused by the illegal act of the Creditor. And, in some cases, punish the Creditor for acting illegally and/or inappropriately.

But, that's a CURE-based strategy. Cure-based strategies are EXPENSIVE time-wise, knowledge-wise, money-wise, emotion-wise and stress-wise.

It's a flawed way of handling your affairs.

Debtors need to be encouraged to practice a PREVENTION-based strategy in handling these matters.

Encouraging Debtors to rely on the thin, thin, thin assurance that a particular adverse action is against the law or not permissible is quite frankly DETRIMENTAL to people's futures.

With that being said, I think it's great to tell Debtors what is against the law and what is not against law so that the Debtor will be informed. But that information should be coupled with clear, preventative steps that the Debtor can take right now to lessen the likelihood that the Debtor will ever have to take the CURE-based route and argue the law in a court.

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