When companies know that people have extra cash, they go after that cash. Whether it's a stimulus check or UBI, companies are not moral beings, they are profit driven machines.
I've had people owe me money. It's not pleasant when you know you've basically given money to them for free while they can laugh in your face. Sometimes I've got it back via debt collectors. It's a good thing.
Maybe you don't like predatory lending, but that's not the same as trying to help out somebody who's having hard times then getting ripped off by them. Not all debtors are some kind of helpless victim of life's unfairness. Often they're just selfish bastards trying to take advantage of whoever they can.
Graeber covers this very point in his book "Debt". It's fascinating.
We all have moral obligations to the people around us: to our families, our friends, our neighbors, the people in our lives. We are generous to our friends, and moral obligations will make them return our generosity.
However, when you borrow money, you are making a gamble. If you manage to repay the loan, you will be allowed to borrow again. If you fail to repay, you will lose something: either the collateral (as in a mortgage), or low interest payments (if you become a "bad risk"), or the right to borrow at all (if you declare bankruptcy, you will have trouble borrowing for 7 years).
The lender is also making a calculated bet. If they ask for collateral, their risk is lower, and they will charge less interest. If they lend you money without collateral (eg a credit card), the interest will be higher. The very fact that unsecured loans charge higher rates means that the lender expects, on average, to make a profit, because the higher interest will make up for the occasional default.
There is no personal relationship between lender and borrower. There is no moral obligation. It's just business and probabilities.
Unfortunately, people confound the two kinds of obligations, personal and financial. Lenders benefit from this confusion, because borrowers will have trouble being cold-blooded about the agreement they are entering into.
High trust societies where individuals can be expected to fulfill their obligations tend to prosper. Low trust societies where individuals cannot be trusted in this way tend to languish.
Paying back debts according to an agreed upon timetable is one of the important ways that high trust societies are built.
Everyone from the bankers themselves to the POTUS knows that paying off debts is only for suckers.
Let the billionaires pay their debts and their taxes first.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortgage_Bankers_Association#D...
If we considered to be ok to not repay debts because a borrower just does not feel obligated to do so (and does not need more loans from that lender), then risk-surcharge would be extremely larger.
You should no more expect someone not to collect debt than you should expect to walk out of Walmart with whatever you want. If someone needs charity, that should be supplied OUTSIDE the normal system (non-profits, governments, friends and family), otherwise the system itself is ripe for abuse.
So you believe scams only happen on one side of the equation? No one has ever faked being homeless, having a medical condition, or faked some other loss or emergency to get money from people under false pretenses? You believe this is never happened in all of history?
People have never borrowed money from friends and family for "food" or "housing" only to find out they spent it on drugs, alcohol, vacations etc?
Debt Collectors are not the only scammers out there
The grocery store doesn't "help" me with food. I pay for it.
The problem emerges when the debt is sold and resold for pennies on the dollar to unethical people that use unethical means to collect on debt that may not even be legally actionable any more (i.e the debt was paid off, written off, or other wise cancelled by a number of programs or other factors but still ends up on a list some where)
This is one area that needs more regulation, and personally I would like to see these 3rd party debt collectors stopped as a industry, if the bank does not care enough to collect on the debt personally then it should simply be vacated