Timeline for Can a person end up in prison for unpaid debt in the USA?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
10 events
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| Dec 27, 2016 at 0:39 | comment | added | user25276 | I am not sure what article you two were discussing but the article linked by @Random832 says in the first sentence: "Arresting people -- or threatening to do so -- over unpaid debts has been illegal in Texas for years now.". Further down in the article we have a sentence that says: "...payday loan businesses are illegally using the criminal justice system to coerce repayment from borrowers..." | |
| Feb 26, 2016 at 22:45 | comment | added | Joe | @Random832 Other than the article header, the rest of it talked about the fact that lenders used this practice specifically as a "legal" way to threaten people. The final paragraph suggested to me that the CFFB would like to penalize lenders for doing this, but not that it's actually illegal (and penalized) per se. This is probably nitpicking at this point - I agree with you this specific practice is not generally legal in the US. | |
| Feb 26, 2016 at 21:45 | comment | added | Random832 | Did you and I read the same article? It uses the term "illegal" multiple times, along with phrases like "laws prohibiting these practices." and "lenders should not expect to break the law without consequences" which strongly suggests there are in fact laws which provide for consequences against the lenders. | |
| Feb 26, 2016 at 21:42 | comment | added | Joe | It doesn't say it's "illegal" - it says it's not in keeping with the law. (i.e., there's not a penalty for trying to do it, but the courts shouldn't allow them to.) To me at least that's very different. | |
| Feb 26, 2016 at 21:25 | comment | added | Random832 | Well, the article points out several things - that it's illegal, but also that creditors do it anyway and get away with it, because people who need payday loans can't afford lawyers. | |
| Feb 26, 2016 at 21:25 | comment | added | Joe | I'm not sure I read that article quite the same way you do, but agreed; most of the time in the US, that practice doesn't work. | |
| Feb 26, 2016 at 21:20 | comment | added | Random832 | For example, this lending practice (of having or threatening to have debtors arrested under bad check laws, based on a check you required them to write to secure the debt) is explicitly illegal in Texas, not that that stops it from happening anyway. | |
| Feb 26, 2016 at 21:15 | comment | added | Random832 | However, in this case (a loan "secured" by post-dated checks), it's simply an attempt by the creditor to force someone into that situation, rather than an actual commission of fraud (the checks aren't really "payment" at the moment they're written, and the person writing them has no reason to believe they definitely won't be paid). | |
| Feb 26, 2016 at 20:20 | history | edited | Joe | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 438 characters in body
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| Feb 26, 2016 at 20:14 | history | answered | Joe | CC BY-SA 3.0 |