Butterfly: I find your generalizations a bit insulting honestly.
You say no one can call 3-4 times a day, but that doesn't seem to stop them, now does it? You say they do everything by law, but now that isn't quite true either now is it? They break the law constantly, it is only now how much this is coming to light because more and more consumers are learning their rights and fighting back. Heck, one big CA conglomerate was even quoted as saying that paying off FCRA violations and lawsuits was a "cost of doing business".
If you notice no one here is suggesting they not pay their bills, but let’s come back to the real world shall we? No one can generally come up with these ridiculous sums (oh and many, many times these sums are not even original balance anymore, they are ridiculous fees and interest rates so there goes your highborn theory of people buying stuff and not paying for it.
Oh and I love how you suggest that people should turn off cable...wow..ok, let’s have the debtor incur another past due bill with early disconnect fees..but who cares as long as I get my inflated interest and fees and bleed the general consumer dry.
Not to mention the little bit about the account not hitting a CA till it is past due..that is such a minor section of the whole…what about old junk debts that may not even be debts? Accounts that are illegally jacked up? Hmm? A comment about that?
I think YOU CAs need to stop crying about consumers learning their rights and fighting back..sheesh get a REAL job.