prison

Mother Jones Our Hats Are Off To You

How many Americans know that America has privatized prisons, the shares of which are listed on stock exchanges?  Free market ideologues provided cover for corrupt Republican politicians to divert taxpayers’ hard-earned money to favored political insiders with the false claim that prisons run by private owners are more cost effective.  A Mother Jones reporter took a job as a private prison guard and found that private prisons are places of unimaginable violence.

Will New Oversight of Credit Reports Stop Unscrupulous Debt Collectors?

The newly formed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will start to oversee the companies who generate credit reports on you. That's Experian, Equifax and TransUnion plus about 30 more.

This action can come none too soon. Unscrupulous debt collectors inaccurately report actions to credit reporting bureaus all the time, especially for Medical bills. Getting these illegal collections or inaccuracies and errors off of one's credit report is next to impossible. Credit reporting agencies simply do not respond it seems to challenges. Experian, as an example, doesn't even have a phone number! Of course you can sue them, but even small claims court is not for the faint of heart and it's not guaranteed one will win, even when being in the right.

One of the biggest problems turning up on credit reports are medical bills. Who does not know billing from Medical facilities is loaded with errors, duplicates and mistakes? Yet more and more Medical companies are turning into the sellers of debt and even bring debt collectors into the Medical practices themselves. That's sloppy, inaccurate medical debt, often for services subpar or not rendered. Literally the health care sector is in the business of selling debt, demanding loan shark interest rates, almost the minute you walk out the door from their facility.