Bad Paper: Chasing Debt from Wall Street to the Underworld – New Book on Truth Behind the Debt Buying Industry

“A gamut of players including publicly traded companies, hedge fund operators, professional debt collectors, street hustlers, ex-cons, and lawyers all work together, and against one another, to recoup every penny on every dollar.  In this often-lawless market place, large portfolios of debt – usually in the form of spreadsheets holding debtor names, contact information, and balances – are bought, sold, and sometimes simply stolen.”  – Jake Halpern, Bad Paper: Chasing Debt from Wall Street to the Underworld

I stumbled into the debt world almost by accident.  Which is a little strange due to the fact that I have worked with clients on debt related issues like bankruptcy for over a decade.  A few years ago I started getting more and more people who were coming into my office for a consultation to discuss filing for bankruptcy because they had been sued by Midland Funding, Portfolio Recovery, or one of the other dozen or so debt buyers who do business in Arizona.

The problem was, but for this one lawsuit many of these families didn’t need to file for bankruptcy.  So, I started researching who these various debt buyers were and why they were showing up on the credit report of almost every bankruptcy client I had.

In this book author Jack Halpern pulls back all the layers that are involved in the debt buying world and discusses industry’s “colorful” players.  If you are being sued by one of the debt buyers or represent people in this cases like I do, I highly recommend this book.