The Washington Post reports today on debt collectors' tactics to revive debts that they cannot otherwise collect on because the statute of limitations has passed. If the consumer makes a payment, even against his or her own will, that can be used to try to revive the life of the debt. So debt collectors often "focus on getting consumers to reset the statute of limitations through a variety of means, including sending them credit cards that let them pay off their old debts or by allowing them to make a small payment to halt debt collection calls. The efforts have contributed to the flood of debt-collection lawsuits clogging courts across the country, consumer advocates say. In New York City, the number of debt-collection lawsuits surpassed 100,000 last year, compared with 47,000 in 2016, according to data from the New Economy Project."
The full article is here.
