Bad debts are self-inflicted wounds on the creditors part.

An individual’s debt is monitored and tracked in detail and the information is available to all creditors. So the creditors are responsible for managing their own risk exposures to any single debtor.

In the last decade or so, banks have been playing a game of changing the rules so they can deliberately violate traditional risk management rules to lend excess amounts for frivolous reasons, justified by ever higher fees and interest rates. It is a game that the banks usually win, but sometimes lose.

Sometimes an ‘unjust’ debt can be fought. Extreme threats can result in cancellation, so this is a good thing.

How about phone bills that involve 900 number calls and things even worse? I remember some early Internet scams where calls were routed to some godawful part of the former USSR or Central America with ludicrous fees per minute of connection time. Verizon got their skim so they had a vested interest in the ripoff of the unwary consumer.

What about on-line gambling debts? While some would outlaw such foolishness, a better legislative remedy would have made any attempt at collection by credit card companies criminal.

There are ‘roaches’ in the world. These are the ones who regularly let ‘bad cars’ ‘go back’. Yet there are some sleazy car dealers who get away with treating people with good credit as ‘roaches’.

Yet a few ‘roaches’ do not justify some of the outrageous ripoffs of big banks. Some of these can support the finest politicians money can buy.