Jesus, NY Times, try to suck a little less, will you?

[trinityvixen]

This is not the right tone to take about these vultures, NYT. People who call up the relatives of the recently deceased and play on good people's morality to get them to pay debts they are not legally obligated to pay? ARE EVIL INCARNATE. I don't want some expose that spends as much time feeling bad for the people who have to do this awful job as it does for the people being bilked to settle someone else's bottom line.

Fucking sickening, man. The article spends the whole time going "Woe are the debt collectors!" and then explaining, in detail, how they go about conning people into paying their relatives' debts. There's hardly a word about how FUCKING TRAUMATIC it would be for the family of the guy who, for example, rang up $20+K in hospital bills right before the end. To me, that screams of some debilitating, probably very traumatic illness and now these fuckshits want the widow on the hook for that money? And all the NYT can do is go, "Well, it's very hard for them to be so hatefully, spitefully mercenary! They have to have afternoon snacks and masseurs and everything just to get through the day!"

Here's a hint: if your job is so demoralizingly EVIL that you can't stay at it without aching down to your very soul, IT IS PROBABLY A GOOD SIGN THAT YOU ARE WORKING FOR SATAN AND SHOULD MAYBE GET ANOTHER JOB. Even in this economy, seriously.

Comments

[moonlightalice.livejournal.com]

Consumerist ran a piece about this (I'm too lazy to look this up), and the comment thread was insane. Some people were like "Yeah, that's not okay, but like *I* would pay off my mom's debt" and then others chimed in and were like "Um, no. There's a reason we stopped doing DEBT PRISON. For god's sake do we really want to go back to serfdom?!"

Ugh.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

We do not, in fact, wish to return to serf-dom, I'm pretty sure. I'm just disgusted at the fact that these people are like, "No, they don't have to pay their dead relatives debts, but don't you think it's good that they do?" Ew, no.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

I think they intended the last line to be damning, but I'm not sure.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Sounds to me like one of their stack of anecdotes where clearly unstable or grieving people bizarrely send them thank-you notes for stealing their money...

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

That's the thing - I couldn't tell from the article whether the writer actually didn't care or felt bad for the call center people, or whether the writer thought these people were reprehensible, and was struggling for impartiality on the puff piece his editor sent him to do. It's hard to tell without seeing the other examples of relatives' reactions on whether the writer deliberately chose examples to paint them as people who are preying on the weak. I mean, that last quote was appalling - the old lady saying that they were so nice to her while she went out and got a job for the first time as a really elderly woman so that she could pay back the debt she didn't owe in $5 increments. And ending the article on that note seemed like it would be horribly condemning, if you thought the quote was appalling. But with a veneer of plausible deniability.

I dunno. I didn't read the Times until I moved here. But lately, a lot of their articles have this weird disingenuous tone, where they act like they're admiring people being overentitled or horrible to each other, but the article seems to be written to drive middle-class readers up the wall in rage. They write ostensibly sympathetic articles about women complaining that their financier boyfriends aren't buying them enough presents because they're stressed and scared of losing their jobs, when you know that most people reading the article will think the subjects are entitled whiny bitches. They have to know that people will be outraged. But they don't seem to have the courage to say, "look at these people, they're crazy and delusional".

(Yes, I know the article I referred to was discredited as a hoax. But allegedly the Times didn't know that when they wrote it.)

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

The veneer is getting thin as far as plausible deniability goes. This isn't even the first one, like that hoax article. They actually had a breakdown of expenses a high-powered exec faced and why that meant he/she couldn't be held to ONLY a $500K salary. (OMG NOT TAKE TWO VACATIONS A YEAR FOR $16K? HOW WILL THE RICH LIIIIIIIIVE!?!?)

These "exposes" into credit/financial concerns seem to be quite effective at drumming up middle/lower class outrage, so you could argue that was the point. Like, the NYT is saying, "look at this thing you might not have known about, how does that make you feel?" But as you said, their "objective" look lends sympathy to people for whom it is impossible to feel pity for--the rich, the spoiled, those who prey on the financially weak/emotionally fragile. It's hard to detangle one's self, as a reporter, from the cares of the people you're involved with interviewing, but an objective report would make an effort to show more than just stunned/conciliatory reactions to a program of (essentially) organized theft. Because, obviously, if we are outraged, some of the people being called must be. But all that we see are these supportive (even if they're questionably supportive) responses and coy, evasive answers about the legality of what these assholes are doing.

The part where the reporter talks about these people specifically training themselves as grief counselors for the purpose of trading something that could be free--you can be counseled on grief by your friends, family, ministers, strangers just as effectively--for the obligation to pay them is particularly abhorrent. This is basically skated over in order to focus on the poor dears who need massages to get through their day. (So, wow, they actually have a pretty good working environment on top of being evil?)

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

I know. The fake objective tone is outrageous. It's kind of like the people who insult you to your face and then act innocent and surprised when you're upset.

The really annoying thing is that they're missing the opportunity to actually get the real story while they posture. A good article on this would have included more interviews with people who are outraged, or outraged after the fact. With loan counselors and financial regulators and other officials who have to deal with the mess or who turn a blind eye.

The article on living on $500,000 missed the point. On one hand, yes, we don't want to reward people with taxpayer money to be incompetent. But they started to actually go down the road of what happens when you change someone's salary that significantly. No one's crying over the missed vacations. But the expensive apartment whose mortgage can't be paid but can't be sold because the market has tanked is an actual liability. Should the people who led us into this mess be punished? Sure. But here's the thing - we really want to fire most of them and replace them. But who will accept a job that requires a lot of stress and blame and being in the spotlight when, if the candidate is qualified, they can get a job in a slightly different industry with much less negative press and 40 times the salary. We do need to reduce executive salaries - they're ridiculous. But if you lower the salary on the executive positions at 20 companies and all the rest stay the same, you're just going to make sure that the 20 companies that most need effective leadership will only get the second or third tier folks.

Is it worth that risk? Can you find talent without the price tag and entitlement? Will there be a brain drain because the talented people are already committed to lifestyles (like mortgages and tuition payments) they can't maintain if they stay in that industry? I don't know. The Times didn't bother to ask, they were too busy snarking about trivial things.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I know. The fake objective tone is outrageous. It's kind of like the people who insult you to your face and then act innocent and surprised when you're upset.

Maureen Dowd makes her living off of this tactic. "What? I'm not being a catty bitch, I'm just saying there are problems and a Clinton was in the news. You drew conclusions, not me!" I suppose I should be less surprised that a company that employs her misses the point like this.

Is it worth that risk? Can you find talent without the price tag and entitlement? Will there be a brain drain because the talented people are already committed to lifestyles (like mortgages and tuition payments) they can't maintain if they stay in that industry? I don't know. The Times didn't bother to ask, they were too busy snarking about trivial things.

It's a question of checks and balances--ostensibly, if you close the purse strings to companies that will not regulate CEO paychecks, they will either have to act more responsibly to avoid needing government money, or they will fail. Some companies will be "too big to fail" and will assume they can get out of it. Honestly, for all that it might do to the economy, it is in the best interests to let people with that sort of lax sense of responsibility fail. We need to punish those who see no connection between their irresponsible behavior and ruin.

Does it mean we won't get smart people to take up positions with less pay? Maybe? I don't think it's a necessary corollary. What you're talking about--people with lifestyles already in excess of the salary cap not being able to adjust lifestyles--is probably true. You won't get those people to take the new job. But I don't think it follows that the people who will are less competent. Less experienced, sure, but less savvy? I doubt it. The financial world is populated by ambitious people; someone will be able to do it for that price and I don't necessarily equate that flexibility on pay scale with lesser ability. The lack of experience, I grant you, will work against them as they have to battle back against the more experienced, overpaid CEOs elsewhere (and not a little back-biting, back-handed commentary about the "poor" new guy making only $500K). But there are definitely people who can do it, and who can be socially responsible on top, and we'd do well to encourage the reforms of banking/investments to reward those people (bonuses contingent on good lending/investing practices?).

Of course, the NYT didn't want to get into this ethical battle. They wanted to make a splash. Well done, they did. But the real reporting? The real consideration of the circumstances? Is being hashed out better on non-professional blogs.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Which I find terrifying. The problem is, people generally only read the blogs that already kind of agree with their preconceived notions. And there's less credibility and ethics established at this point for the blogs. Plus, honestly, a big paper has resources and clout that a blogger won't have. The idea that the responsible journalism we have left are independent, semi-anonymous, fractured blogs is scary. And yet the Times merrily wastes its opportunities instead of actually dealing with the stuff we need journalists for.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Word. It's a scary, scary time in journalism right now.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

I'm of two minds about this. On one hand, yes, these companies have people going after money they don't have any legal obligation to. The companies definitely have some evil going. I have some sympathy for the employees, because times are tough and you take whatever job you can get, but not enough that I agree with the tone of the article.

On the other hand, I do think that people should be responsible for paying their debts, and to some degree, you have to be responsible for your family. Should you be legally responsible for dad's credit card? No, of course not, he (was) an adult and you couldn't control him. But on a moral level: How responsible was he for your quality of life? Would he have had those debts if he didn't pay for you to go to college? ("Where is your brother Abel?" "Am I my brother's keeper?")

Or another way, if the medical bills had piled up but dad had recovered, and then he needed help paying them, would you even hesitate? Why does it make a difference, then?

From a coldly logical perspective, no, you should never pay any debt you don't have to. From an emotional perspective, it just seems like the honorable thing to do.

I'm not sure how clear I'm being, of course.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

You're making an emotional appeal on the level that these vultures would, dude. I'm not buying it. Hardly any of these cases, with the medical bills a possible exception, are issues of "my dad/brother/cousin did this to make my life better" charges. We're talking about the mundane things that the deceased enjoyed. I'm not saying their estate should not pay those debts, am I? Those debts belong to that person. He or she was obligated to pay them, and we have laws in place that allow creditors to sack the lot of their monies if they have left debts behind.

And that is fucking far as they deserve to go. That person was responsible for their debt, not their wife, not their children, not their grandchildren. This is not about family honor or meeting obligations that your parents promised in order for you to go to college. This is people exploiting grief for the purposes of making money, plain and simple. We already have a severe credit crisis with living people unable to afford their lifestyles. That needs to change; sacking those people with their relatives' debts seems like a great way to get even those who manage their credit into debt.

I'll admit: I don't trust the creditors. Because the system works in their favor all the time. Somewhere in the past, we drew a line and said they couldn't continue to squeeze blood from stones; we said the debt died with the person. (Again, but not with their estate.) If we managed to draw that line when we've never said boo to the creditors before (indeed, now we are falling all over ourselves to shore them up with our tax monies), I think that line should be preserved. Them as step over it are bastards looking to push for just that last little bit of sweat they can beat out of the bereaved that they can't bully the government into granting them the legal right to do.

Essentially, doing this by emotional blackmail spares them having to admit that they'd like nothing more than to throw relatives of deceased debtors into the debtors prisons they consigned the recently departed to in their lifetime. I only see this leading to abuse--they are already being abusive, to my mind, preying on the relatives' sense of obligation for things like a $100 cell phone bill. I call bullshit, and these people are unforgivable.

Or another way, if the medical bills had piled up but dad had recovered, and then he needed help paying them, would you even hesitate? Why does it make a difference, then?

I did mention that the medical bills might be the exception, because families might be obliged to the doctors who did their best, etc. and the personal connection might spur them to discharge the debts. Certainly, while doing so might just pad the insurance company's bottom line, it would be a more personal thing than attaching a check to a piece of paper and sending $400 to Best Buy.

Here, however, you're apples-to-oranges. Again, if the credit companies could force relatives to pay for their deceased loved one's bills in any fashion, they'd be all over that like white on rice. They can't. They can--legally--force the living patient to pay it or turn him over to a collections agency because he/she is obligated. The law is on their side there. All morality questions aside, that's what it comes down to: is it legal? In the post-mortem case, it is not, and these people are abusive little fucks trying to ply money where they are not allowed to insist. If they want the money so bad, they can do what they did w/r/t the bankruptcy laws and put pressure on the government to give them the right to sack the estates of people related to the deceased debtor. I still hold out hope that most lawmakers would recognize this as a beyond the pale move--exactly what I consider their pushing for debt resolution without legal right to be.

/ soapbox

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I might also point out that the bills incurred by the dead that benefit the living relatives left behind are going to be laden with interest. I don't have any problem, given how ridiculous interest rates can be on loans/credit charges, with the living not being responsible for that. If you want to pay Dad's debt because he borrowed to get you through school, that's your choice. If you recognize that the credit company just wanted to sit fat on the interest from that loan, you might feel differently. (By that time, they will probably also have already depleted dad's estate. Legally. Besides which, they chose to lend to dad--if he didn't have the assets to pay in a timely fashion or they loaned to him when he was sick/old, they took the risk, and they're as much to blame for it going unpaid--since they have every resource in the world to force payment.)

[umeyard.livejournal.com]

All of a sudden my job makes me feel like Mary Sunshine.