All,
In this podcast I discuss what I call the “Golden Rule of Fighting Debt Collectors”. What to know what the rule is? Listen to the free podcast!
I also asked for your feedback on some of my actions and if you think I am selling out. As you ponder that, please consider the amount of ads and sponsored links on this webpage: none.
I also discuss why I don’t vote. I don’t vote because these aren’t my candidates that are going to run my government. These candidates are mostly tools of lobbyists and the bankers. Listen to the podcast for a little bit more.
Lastly, I don’t participate in jurys. I am referring to the jurys that are in the county and district court. The reason I don’t participate is that the local courts are rigged. If you don’t agree, it is likely because you haven’t been to many local court proceedings.
I refuse to be an accomplice.
Do you agree or not? Please post your comments. They keep me going.
Fight the essential fight, Boiler
So C_rs_n Sm_thf__ld made you an offer you could have refused? None of us in the audience were parties to your dispute or able to review your NDA. It’s not our place to tell you what decisions were correct or how much compromise you should personally accept. But that compromise has affected more than the lawsuit parties, and that’s where you create a problem.
You’ve said yourself, more or less, that one reason for running an ersatz consumer litigant clinic is that one person chipping out a couple grand in pre-suit settlement does nothing to effect the permanent crippling so many scofflaw agencies are begging for. The opposition thrives on the collective suffering of many, and it will take well-informed collective action to finally defeat what often amounts to extortion in the name of “recovering distressed assets”.
To assist them it will take information sources which are reasonably accurate and strictly free of harmful influence. It’s nice that you won’t sell advert space, but you apparently will sell your silence, and retroactively to boot. The moment it’s known that site content can be clipped out like coupons for the right price, you harm the credibility of everything which remains. That impression can happen even if what you’ve excised was factually inaccurate. That’s something to weigh as you build your brand on the debris from a destructive industry. A site like this and your legal disputes are each a form of protest; use them wisely to keep one from defanging the other.
You’re finding a few things the hard way: 1.) Being an industry tattletale is easy until someone discovers you’re not a “real” journalist and there are ways to threaten you. 2.) They may reportedly be felons, drug abusers, and/or sex offenders, but debt collectors know how to read and enter search terms. 3.) The lawyers they hire to fight you will adopt the spirit of a different “Miranda warning” and use everything you speak and write against you. None of this is an excuse to stop exposing lawbreakers or helping empower their victims, but there are ways to do so in the open without lighting up a neon bullseye on your back.
Resident,
The “selling out” issue haunts me daily.
Every settlement involves compromise, AKA selling out. If I didn’t settle and fought until the jury decided my fate, I would likely still be working on my first case. That wouldn’t be the most effective course either. There is a middle ground that maximizes my efforts. I don’t always hit the sweet spot and maximize my efforts in every lawsuit. I doubt I will ever know what could have happened, so it is hard to look back on these events and perfectly evaluate them.
The opposition, Debt Collectors, do thrive on the masses suffering. They have only three weapons, fear, intimidation and corrupt courts. One person that works in a factory is not going to change that. My goal is to spread the word to as many people as I can help. To do this I needed to have a track record of success. If I was still fighting my initial lawsuit, I think it would be much more difficult to convince people that this works.
This does work.
Your specific comment about selling out by removing recordings is something I pondered for a long time before I removed them. The reason I did do this is that these calls were not unique. I could do this with every collection call I have heard. In fact, if you or someone else sends me an MP3 of a call, I will essentially do the same thing and make it into a new podcast. If the call had been unique, I would not have pulled it.
As you know, these collectors break the law and almost every turn. They have to if they want to maximize their profits. Throw in consumer ignorance and apathy and you have their business model. Following the law is not profitable to them.
I may have a neon bulls-eye on my back as you state. This is why I often tip-toe around issues while litigation is ongoing or about to commence. There is a price for talking about what I talk about in the manner that you see. While it has every drawback you mention, it also has its benefits. The benefits include spreading the word, having a purposes in life, etc. This may sound a bit contrived, but it is absolutely true: When I put my three year old daughter to bed every night, there is nothing that I did that day that I would be embarrassed to tell her. I at least tried to make the world a better place for her today. She is my litmus test.
Sorry for the storybook ending to this reply.
Fight Your Good Fight, Boiler