If the debt collectors somehow manage to trick the debtors into acknowledging the debt, the debt clock is reset & it goes back on to your credit report.
How long does it stay on your credit report?
Declaring bankruptcy generally lets you keep your primary house and car; without bankruptcy those could be taken from you.
> differentiating medical from non-medical collection agency accounts. This will help ensure that medical collections have a lower impact on the score, commensurate with the credit risk they represent. These enhancements help lenders because it leads to a more predictive score. The median FICO Score for consumers whose only major negative references are medical collections will increase by 25 points.
http://www.fico.com/en/newsroom/fico-score-9-introduces-refi...
http://time.com/money/3092005/fico-credit-score-changes-fair...
The debt is only valid six months from delinquency to seven years post that date. Period.
As the program points out what they buy is name and number. So I suppose if the person involved showed up in court and demanded any sort of confirmation of debt (like original bills perhaps?) then the case would be dismissed. After all the company needs some proof. But they overload the courts and if no one shows up to defend then the default judgement goes in favor of the debt collector.
And then they go and collect with the power of law behind them.
This is crazy but that's how they roll in the land of the free :)
That's also why they were sold for a fraction of a penny on the dollar -- the only way you could collect on them is to call the debtors and hassle them. At this point those debtors are probably also wise to the fact that you have no legal power to enforce.
Pretty much they can hook you in by calling you and saying "Good day Mr. Smith you have a debt for 50$ to Acme Medical do you want to hear about our debt relief plan with payments as low as 1$ a month". If at any point you seem to show any response to it they can use it to prove that you've acknowledged the debt at which point they can go to court and force you to pay.
The laws should be made that way that debt that has expunged is not tradeable or actionable in any way period.