Preying financially on the weakest

[Ivory Lee Spurlock]

Originally Posted by jhadorn

Are you saying that Trump is to blame for putting people in jail for debt?.

I'm saying I didn't know this country put people in jail for debt. I never heard of anybody going to because they didn't pay their bills. The only consequences they face is they mess up their credit, their stufff can be reposessed and they can be sued by the creditors, but they don't have to go to jail. I thought they did away with debtors prisons long before I was born in 1954. The only times I ever heard of anybody going to jail for owing money is a parent who is way far behind in his or her child support or a person who hasn't paid his or her taxes.

I would think the corporate types would be the ones who would be in favor of putting people in jail who owe them money. Donald Trump sounds like the kind of person who would be in favor of putting somebody in jail because they owe him money. I think most corpirate types would be in favor of that. I believe many of these corporate types would love for this country to be run by businesses instead of politicians. If that's the road we're heading down, then a US fascist type government is definitely on the way.

[Listener2307]

Originally Posted by Ivory Lee Spurlock

I'm saying I didn't know this country put people in jail for debt. I never heard of anybody going to because they didn't pay their bills............

"Not paying your bills" is not the subject here. No one goes to jail because he didn't pay a water bill of a mortgage or his rent.
Surely you knew that not paying traffic fines of other city fines can cause you to spend a few nights in jail. Surely you knew that.

[viverlibre]

Below is an article explaining how County DAs acted as collection agencies for merchants and collected on bad checks. Some DAs took it a step further and jailed those who didn't make good on their bad checks.


https://www.insidearm.com/news/00001...lectors-on-ba/

Local DAs Competing with Collectors on Bad Checks

Published on:
28 June 2007 at 07:24 a.m. ET

Thanks to a decrease in check writing and an increase in merchants outsourcing to collection agencies, several Mississippi district attorneys’ offices are feeling a bite in their budgets – a phenomenon that could signal a positive trend for the accounts receivable management industry.

“[Collection agencies] certainly competition for us,” District Attorney for Mississippi’s 8th District, Mark Duncan, told insideARM.com. “People, also, just aren’t writing as many checks as they used to.”

In Mississippi, merchants have long had the option of asking local DAs to act as their collector on the bad checks that customers write. The service is free for merchants; debtors are assessed a $40 collection fee by the DA’s Worthless Checks Unit, as well as any service charges the merchant has for returned checks. Merchants fill out a Bad Check Complaint form with pertinent information for each bounced check they seek to have collected and the DA’s office contacts the debtor seeking the money.

The service has proven a nice revenue generator for some district attorneys.

John Champion, district attorney for five counties in northern Mississippi, told the Clarion Ledger that his collection work pays for more than 30 percent of his annual expenses.

But in recent years some merchants have decided its better for business of they don’t get the district attorney involved when a check bounces.

“A bad check writer is still a customer,” said William Alias, Jr., CEO of Security Check, an Oxford, Mississippi-based collection agency that primarily services bad-check accounts. “Most people who write bad checks aren’t out to screw anyone over. They’ve made a mistake, or they had a tough patch.”

Check collecting has also declined as consumers shift to credit and debit cards to make purchases. In addition, some merchants use technology that reviews a check writer’s credit quality at the point of sale before accepting a check.

Last year, the collection business for several DAs tanked when Wal-Mart in Mississippi decided to switch to private collection agencies, says Sharon Jernigan, director of the Worthless Checks Unit for Rankin and Madison counties.

Jernigan told the Clarion Ledger that checks from Wal-Mart accounted for about a third of her office’s business. Her office has received payments on 4,450 checks for the fiscal year 2007 that ends on June 30, a 29 percent drop from the 6,226 checks it received in fiscal 2006.

Collection agencies have a competitive disadvantage because they charge for services, typically either a percentage of the amount recovered or a flat fee. But agencies are devoted solely to collections and have a trained staff. And in the case of Alias’s agency, “We view ourselves almost as a consulting firm. We want to help merchants retain as many of these bad-check-writers as possible, because they’re customers. Most of them didn’t mean to write the bad check in the first place.”

[jhadorn]

This is what I have a problem with. It happened in Biloxi in 2012 and similar happens in other parts of the state:

During a single week in 2011, Joseph Anderson, 52, suffered three heart attacks and a stroke. The latter left the left side of his body partially paralyzed. Later that year, he suffered a fourth heart attack. Prior to his health problems, Anderson worked as a mechanic at a local Best Western. After that disastrous stretch, he has been unable to work, and struggles to get by on the less than $10,000 per year he gets in various forms of public assistance.

In 2012 a Biloxi, Mississippi, police officer pulled Anderson over for speeding. He was fined $170, or about 20 percent of his monthly income. When he couldn’t pay that amount, a city judge sentenced Anderson to 12 months of misdemeanor probation. He was ordered to pay $50 per month to the city until his fine was paid off. But that wasn’t all. Anderson’s probation would be administered by a private company called Judicial Correction Services, Incorporated (JCS). In addition to what he owed the city, he was also ordered to pay JCS a $10 set-up charge, and a $40 monthly “supervision fee.” That $40 fee was due each month for the duration of his probation, even once he had paid off his original fine. All of which means that because Anderson was too poor to pay his $170 fine, his overall debt ballooned to $580. His fine more than tripled, solely because he was too poor to pay it.

Anderson did the best he could, paying JCS about $20 per month for the first few months of his probation. But that wasn’t enough. In September 2012, Biloxi Municipal Court Judge Eugene Henry issued a warrant for Anderson’s arrest. In the last week of 2012, a Biloxi police officer came to Anderson’s home. When Anderson opened his door, the officer immediately arrested him, in front of Anderson’s girlfriend Qumotria Kennedy and her teenage son and daughter. Read More in the Link Below

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.155fe9617969

[Ivory Lee Spurlock]

Originally Posted by Listener2307

"Not paying your bills" is not the subject here. No one goes to jail because he didn't pay a water bill of a mortgage or his rent.

Surely you knew that not paying traffic fines of other city fines can cause you to spend a few nights in jail. Surely you knew that.

Reading some of the posts in this thread made me think maybe there are debtor prisons in this country. I didn't *think* there were any, but I couldn't say with 100% certainty there are none. Debtors prisons had been such a rare topic thru out my lifetime that I never gave them too much thought because I never heard too much about them.

It's been under Trump that I have heard the subject come up more than any other time in my life. In all honesty, it would not surprise me one bit if there is a resurgence of debtors prisons in the United States under Trump.

[Sydney123]

Let’s see... the poor being jailed because they can’t afford to pay a fine... seems a little counterproductive to me. Rather than receiving money for an infraction.... it’s costing them money to feed, house, and guard them while they do their time.

[jhadorn]

Originally Posted by Ivory Lee Spurlock

Reading some of the posts in this thread made me think maybe there are debtor prisons in this country. I didn't *think* there were any, but I couldn't say with 100% certainty there are none. Debtors prisons had been such a rare topic thru out my lifetime that I never gave them too much thought because I never heard too much about them.

It's been under Trump that I have heard the subject come up more than any other time in my life. In all honesty, it would not surprise me one bit if there is a resurgence of debtors prisons in the United States under Trump.

Absolutely nothing to do with Trump. The story I posted goes back to 2012, and Trump is not pushing anything to do with debtors prison, jail, or etc.

Yes, I support Trump, think he is doing a good job. I don't know where some of this stuff comes from.