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Comment on Paying consumer debts is basically optional in the United States

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the vast majority of consumers, including those with the socioeconomic wherewithal to walk away from their debts, feel themselves morally bound and pay as agreed

The extent to which the headline is true is probably only because of the above quote. If a significant number of people who actually had the means to pay simply chose not to, of course debtors would start taking collection more seriously.

Perhaps this means you could game the system, but I’m still skeptical that any debtor would choose not to sue you over 20k+ if they thought you had the means to pay.

People with 20k of delinquent debt and the means to pay it are a bit of an edge case, though; mostly people that collections agencies go after will not have the means to reasonably pay their debt, at least not all of it. This encourages agencies to be more aggressive; they want _their_ debt to be first in line for anything that does get paid.

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