Oh lookee! Personal irresponsibility isn’t dead! That’ll solve all of our problems.

Oh whoopee of course they don’t tell you it totally screws up your credit account for years. Also, that forgiven debt is reported to the IRS which you have to pay taxes on. The scam isn’t as golden as it sounds.

I’m with cybele…personal responsibility is a huge problem in this mess.

This makes me think of Kevin Trudeau, who wrote a book supposedly exposing secrets about medicine and health care that “they” don’t want you to know. He peddles this book to people eager to find a solution to their health problems and people that don’t want to give their money to HMOs and Big Pharma (which I can totally understand)…except he asks them to give their money to him. Which many do.

Of course, there are also a lot of fringe people that claim that income taxes are unconstitutional, and there’s nothing that can happen to you if you refuse to pay them.

evan, I ran into one of those so called “independant persons” who refused to pay income taxes. They lost the battle and levied huge fines and are currently, last I heard, hiding from the law to avoid jail time.

All that said, a scam is a scam and the news giving it credibility is obscene.

Frazgo — exactly. That’s kind of an important thing for the guy not to mention. Try getting a credit card, car loan, etc. at all or at a non-usurious rate after pulling this stunt. Good luck with that.

Evan — I assume you mean in your last phrase that the fringe people claim or believe that there’s nothing that can happen to you if you refuse to pay your taxes. Of course, they’re flat wrong.

Matt, yes, that’s what I meant. My wording was a bit muddled.

This guy’s got a lot of nerve, I’ll give him that. I saw that story last night, and I thought to myself, this clown is telling people to be dead beats. In this economy with people losing their houses, cars, jobs, ect.
he’s telling people don’t pay, and the credit card co’s will cut you a deal, very bad message to send, but you know what? someone out there
will buy that book. Plenty of suckers still out there.

Yeah, actor Wesley Snipes tried to get out of paying his taxes, and
he wound up paying even more than he hid from the Feds.

Are there really idiots out there in need of a disclaimer that if you fuck up your credit your credit will be fucked up?

Not to be pedantic, but didn’t he actually incur $30,000 of debt that he didn’t have before rather than getting himself “out of debt?”

Who is John Galt?

Will, I’m sure the answer to your question is “yes.”

Really not sure where you’re heading with the Ayn Rand reference on this, Ugly American.

Are you suggesting that because this technique works, that people should use it? Because from I know about objectivism, it does involve using every available loophole for personal gain.

What struck me about the KCAL coverage was their lack of a counterpoint, or any sort of warning. This was nothing less than an endorsement of potentially damaging plan. Not even the suggestion of a raised eyebrow at the whole idea – in fact, Glen Walker said if you’re in credit card debt that this was a must read. Pretty strange.

However, it does address a running problem – that people who are responsible and make payments on time, or people who never get into serious debt in the first place – gain less than people who abuse the system.

However, it does address a running problem – that people who are responsible and make payments on time, or people who never get into serious debt in the first place – gain less than people who abuse the system.

In other words, the “looters and moochers” mentality.

It’s all the rage right now, from the government on down.

In fairness I watched the clip and Markland is right to object at the piece’s lack of a counterpoint. But at the same time I think he’s exaggerating things into a worst case deadbeat scenario. Kenny Goode isn’t advocating that people go load up their credit cards and then default on them. In his case he worked a settlement solution after unfortunate circumstances left him deeply in debt, and I get the sense he’s just saying (and making a buck in book sales by doing so) that here’s an option that people in similar positions might want to consider.