John Oliver’s videos on YouTube are both funny and educational.
Each video, he sits down and talks about an important topic that needs to be
addressed. It’s clear from the very beginning that he has done his research.
John has managed to uncover some incredibly facts that do open your eyes to the
truth – reading between the lines, and telling it exactly how it is, all while
making it funny isn’t an easy job to do, but John makes it look easy. He has talked
about topics such as: Food waste, sex education, mental health, government surveillance,
patents. He has also talked about a few light-hearted subjects, such as: Leap
second, re-gifting, April Fools Day, and conspiracies in which he made up his
own to prove a point.
In this video, he talks about debt buyers who illegally scrounge
as much money as they can out of you, by threatening you or via other methods
that are deemed shocking. I knew debt collectors were a thing, but I didn’t
know that they were this sort of thing – a badly organised group of companies
that only know one thing and that’s to take as much money from you as it’s
possible, leaving you wondering they on Earth had just happened.
He only talks about the debt collectors who operate in America,
which is why this video is only available to view in America, unfortunately. The
above paragraph has already given a quick overview about what he talks about
and how debt collectors work.
In England, we have what is known as Bailiffs. If you owe a lot of
money for something rather important, say a speeding ticket, unpaid bills, or
unpaid insurance, and the company has tried various ways to push you in the right
direction and pay off your deb, then they will hire Bailiffs who will come
round your house and take anything that equals in value to the owed money: A
TV, games console(s), computer, basically anything. Then they sell the items
for the value they are worth to give the money to the companies you owe the
money to, and they’ll keep coming back for more depending on how much money
they get selling the items, or how much you owe. And they are perfectly entitled
within the law to do just that, because they would have been given an official certification
to take your belongings. It can be a complicated and time consuming matter, but
in the end, most companies who hire Bailiffs get what they want.
We also do have Debt Collectors in England, but they are completely
different to that of a Bailiff, but many Debt Collectors do try and act like a
Bailiff, which is illegal because they wouldn’t have gotten an official court
order to do what is necessary to get you to pay your money. Debt Collectors do
not have the power to take your belongings, but they do so anyway.
To get a license, they are obliged to follow the rules set out by
the Office of Fair Trading, which aims to prevent unfair practice, but hidden
cameras have caught many debt collectors ignoring these rules and doing what
they shouldn’t, such as: misrepresent the amount of debt you owe; calling you
at work or in the early hours of the morning; falsely claiming to be an attorney;
insult the public or use profanity in their communications; lie about jail time,
warrants, or lawsuits; contacting your employer or family members. Many have
been prosecuted for those acts, but there are still those that believe they
will get away with it. It is clear that these guidelines are being thrown out
of the window altogether. Sometimes, they can harass you with countless phone
calls per day. One example of this is when a family were targeted by debt
collectors and received over 370 phone calls over the next couple of weeks.
That’s over 30 phone calls per day on average.
In England, there are still over 20,000 debt collectors across the
country, chasing £20bn+ in debt.
In America, Debt Collectors making it worse for many people, and
some in this England are doing so as well. John Oliver explains what debt
collectors do in America. His research is extensive and nails every point on
the head with unflinching accuracy. The funny side of his explaining only helps
you understand what he is saying that much more instead of turning it into a boring
lecture full of nothing but facts and statistics. It shocked me how easy it is
to set up my own debt collection agency and buy people’s debts from them,
starting the chain of events leading to them being in a complicated mess and me
sitting in a pool of money. It’s not fair and does indeed needs to be stopped immediately.
On a brighter note. John Oliver made television history by giving
the largest amount of money away in one go. He explains that he has set up his
own debt collection company, known as CARP (Central Asset Recovery Professionals)
incorporated, and brought over 14 million dollars’ worth of medical debt. He
then explained that he has no intention to follow up on this and set forth to
give it all away to charity. John presses a big red button to activate the process
to transfer all the money. This completely shatters the previous record set by
Oprah Winfrey when she gave each and every person in her audience a car. That giveaway
was estimated to be nearly 8 million dollars.
That is just one of many ways debt collectors have been beaten,
across England and America, and they will continue to be beaten as long as they
are around. Below are a few links that will direct you to the necessary
information regarding Debt Collectors and their ways in England, and what to
look out for if for any reason you feel you should be suspicious.
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/debt-and-money/action-your-creditor-can-take/bailiffs/what-is-a-bailiff/
Thanks for reading
Antony Hudson
(TonyHadNouns)
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