Might it make sense not to look into debt that is in collections?
"It's your business to pay what you owe but it's not your business to determine what you owe.  The ""Fair Debt Collections Practices act"" FDCPA proscribes certain steps creditors must go through to contact you.  You appear to not have received any active contact or demand, but you can still cite the FDCPA to make it their problem. Write to the creditor's address (I assume its the hospital, the OP isn't clear), use USPS Certified Mail Return Receipt Requested, asking them to validate that you owe this debt by mail in 5 days, as is your right under the FDCPA.   If they get back to you and you agree (or its reasonably plausible) you do owe it, pay it especially if it's on the order of $100.  At least you will know it is settled at the source.  Cross reference to your insurance claims to be sure its not double billed or a miscredited copay, but you may see many legit separate charges from one ER visit (hospital,  doctor, anesthesiologist,  etc) and it would not be the first time a medical billing system crapped the bed. If you don't hear anything after a few weeks, use the credit report protest process (or write to them, cc: the Federal Trade Commission) contesting the validity of this report.  The creditor did not respond to your FDCPA request for validation (copy of the Return Receipt); and you otherwise believe you are current with the hospital.  Per the Fair Credit Reporting act,  they must investigate.  Fight bureaucratic fire with fire: conduct all business by mail, and make liberal use of certified mail return receipts.  Its a $6 way to telegraph you know that they have specific federal law timeliness requirements; and you have a federal timestamp signed by someone in their organization."
"The word ""good"" was used in contrast to ""bad"" but these words are misused here.  There are three kinds of debt: Debt for spending. Never go into debt to buy consumables, go out for a good time, for vacations, or other purchases with no lasting financial value. Debt for depreciating assets, such as cars and sometimes things like furniture. There are those who put this in the same category as the first, but I know many people who can budget a car payment and pay it off during the life of the car. In a sense, they are renting their car and paying interest while doing so. Debt for appreciating, money-making assets. Mortgage and student loans are both often put into the good category. The house is the one purchase that, in theory, provides an immediate return. You know what it saves you on the rent. You know what it costs you, after tax. If someone pays 20% of their income toward their fixed rate mortgage, and they'd otherwise be paying 25% to rent, and long term the house will keep up with inflation, it's not bad in the sense that they need to aggressively get rid of it. Student loans are riskier in that the return is not at all guaranteed. I think that one has to be careful not to graduate with such a loan burden that they start their life under a black cloud. Paying 10% of your income for 10 years is pretty crazy, but some are in that position. Finally, some people consider all debt as bad debt, live beneath their means to be debt free as soon as they can, and avoid borrowing money." "Here is the discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/6gsvgh/the_supreme_court_has_decided_that_the_fair_debt/    Yes, but the discussion was that this allows for many loopholes where an outside firm can be hired for collections, which can then go back to using tactics like the old dark days.  ...also fyi - I assume in your comment above you meant ""owned"" not ""owed""..." "In addition to dpassage's excellent advice on dealing with your debt in the most efficient manner, you may also want to consider Consumer Credit Counseling Services (CCCS). These are non-profit agencies (free or low-cost) that can work with you and your creditors to come up with payment plans and sometimes negotiate lower interest rates to help you get out from under the debt. You should definitely avoid for-profit ""debt consolidation"" companies, but the National Foundation for Credit Counseling can refer you to non-profit services in your area." This is possible.  In fact in the cases of debt settlement the collection companies typically issue a 1099 for the difference on what is owed and what is settled, making that taxable income.  So the IRS sees it as income (in the US). However, this kind of dishonesty is not conducive to building long term wealth or wealth of significant means.    As others have said this is fraud, but provided that one is truthful on the loan application, it would be impossible to prove.  How can one prove that a person has no intention of paying a loan back? Doing this once or twice may ruin your ability to receive a loan for legitimate purposes for life. "what are the incentives to that person to actually pay off his/her debt as opposed to just walking away from it and relying on the cash (s)he has for the future spending needs as opposed to borrowing Well, you can't just ""walk away"" from debt - you still owe it. Eventually your creditors would end up suing you in court for the money, plus interest owed.  I suppose you could try to continually duck the authorities, but you'd still owe the money legally." "In some cases, it might be rational to pay low-interest debt first, because the consequences of defaulting on that debt are worse.   Consider this simplified example.  Suppose you have two debts: a low-interest mortgage, secured by your house, and a high-interest unsecured credit card debt, both of which are within a few years of being paid off.  There is a chance that sometime between now and then, something will happen to disrupt your income (e.g. medical problems), and it won't be possible to make the payments on either loan.   Defaulting on the credit card loan will result in a lower credit score and calls from collection agencies.  Defaulting on the mortgage will result in the foreclosure or forced sale of your house, at best forcing you to move, and at worst leaving you homeless, at a time when you are also facing other (e.g. medical) problems.  So you might rationally judge that losing your house is much worse than bad credit.  Therefore, you might rationally conclude that it would be better to direct extra income toward paying down the mortgage, to increase the chances that, if and when an income disruption might occur, the mortgage would already be paid off.  In other words, you shorten the window of time where income disruption results in foreclosure. You might decide that this increased security is worth the extra interest you will pay, compared to the strategy where you pay the high-interest loan first. This is a fairly special situation, but you asked ""Why might it be a good idea to do this?"", and I am just giving an example where it could rationally be considered a good idea.   (Of course, in a real-life version of this example, there might be other options available, such as refinancing the mortgage.  If you like, you could imagine a more extreme example where the lower-interest debt is owed to Joey Knuckles the loanshark, who will come and break your kneecaps if you miss a payment.)" "Would it make sense to take a loan from a relative... Other people have pointed this out, but honestly, I'd be very reluctant to answer ""yes"" to this no matter how you completed that sentence. There's always an intangible risk to mixing money and relationships. There's a lot that can go wrong during the duration of the loan, and if it does, the consequences could be a lot greater than just a bad credit score." "Your main reason to not pay off your debts right now seems to be: Enjoy life while ""I am young"" and not miss opportunities to have fun? I think the good news is that having fun usually does not require spending a lot of money. I would propose that most of the times when we considered something fun it had more to do with who we were with than what we were actually doing. Of course there are many fun things that are expensive, but there are even more fun things that require little money at all. My suggestion to you would be to prioritize your debt in a responsible way such that you have a plan to pay it off quickly, but if something comes along that does require extra money, don't be afraid to make an adjustment. For example, you can try to put 2000€ towards your debt every month, but if some exciting adventure comes along that you really want to do and it costs 1000€ one month, you shouldn't feel like you absolutely must turn it down. That month you could put 1000€ towards debt and the other 1000€ towards the adventure. I wouldn't recommend taking an adventure every month, but I wouldn't always turn one down either. Besides, I think most of the time you can have lots of fun for free." If you tell the collector that the claim isn't valid, they're obliged to go back to the creditor to verify it. Sometimes that gets a real person, instead of their automatic billing system, to look at the claim, and if you're right, they'll drop it. Even assuming you were reading the balance sheet correctly it means nothing. What banks mostly care about is cash flow.  Do they have enough extra money to make the payments on whatever they borrow? I have never had a credit card company ask me about assets--they don't care.  They care about income with which to pay the credit card bill. Have a solid record of paying your bills and enough income to pay back what you are trying to borrow and you'll have an excellent credit rating no matter what your net worth.  Whether you are one person or a megacorporation makes no difference. I would sit down with the creditors and negotiate smallest amount you can get before agreeing with whatever you have to pay. Think that, for them, it's much more convenient to get way less than $36K than to see you in collections. Needless to say, don't tell them you have to money to cancel off :-) If the price had dropped to $4 from $50, and you had $5000 to start with on your account, you will be left with $400 in your account if you closed the position now. So you would not be in debt if this was the only possition you had open. I think you've made a perfectly valid suggestion, and, if your son is struggling somewhat financially now, one that may be very welcome. If you agree to forgive the debt at this time in lieu of a similar amount forgone in future inheritance, it will eliminate the never ending interest-only payments, free up $200+ a month for you son on a tight budget, and improve your own credit score once you pay off the credit line. It's also, in my opinion, a good idea to be open about this in advance with your other children heirs so that everyone will understand what is expected during the eventual probate. My paternal grandfather was the recipient of a great deal of financial largess from his wealthy mother during her life, and it was fully understood by him, her, and his siblings, that in exchange he would not share in her estate when she passed. He didn't, there were no problems, and he and his siblings stayed close for the rest of their lives. "You should hire a lawyer. The fact that they told you your personal information shows that they actually had it, and are not imposters, which is a good thing. The fact that they mislead you means that their intentions are not pure (which is not surprising coming from a collection agency of course). When dealing with collections (or any matter of significance for that matter), don't rely on their recording of the call, because they can always conveniently lose it. Make sure to write down every single detail discussed, including the date and time of the call, and the ID/name of the person on the other side. If possible - make your own recording (notifying them of it of course). It's too late to record the calls now, but do try to reconstruct as much information as possible to provide to your lawyer to deal with it. In the end of the day they will either provide you with the recording (and then you might be surprised to hear that what they said was not in fact what you thought they said, and it was just your wishful thinking, it is very possible to be indeed the case), or claim ""we lost it"" and then it will be a problem to either of you to prove who said what, but they'll have the better hand (having better lawyers) in convincing the court that you're the one trying to avoid paying your debts. That is why proper representation at all stages is important. As to the bankruptcy - it won't help for student loans, student loans is one of the very few types of debts you can't really run away from. You have to solve this, the sooner the better. Get a professional advice. For the future (and for the other readers) - you should have gotten the professional advice before defaulting on these loans, and certainly after the first call." "If you're looking for an analogy or exercise, I saw a personal finance show that had people climb stairs, with the debt as weight. Every flight of stairs more ""interest"" and loans to cover income gaps have to be added to the total debt they carry up the stairs. Can't find the video online though. But I think you need to ask your brother what he thinks his problem is, that will be solved with more loans. It's likely that your brother's problem can't be solved with advice. Since he's not spending rationally, rational arguments have no sway. I suspect he'll tell you his problem is one or two angry creditors, perhaps even ones you don't know about, rather than a fundamental imbalance between income and expenses. Robbing Peter to pay Paul, or moving weights from one backpack compartment to another, doesn't solve the underlying problems. Whatever you do, another loan from you should be off the table. He's an adult now, with problems the size of which you can't help with. We both know how his story ends: all creditors cut him off, and he's in court over garnished wages and creditors fighting over his assets. Reality is the only argument that will have any sway. He's far too personally invested in his scheme to admit defeat, which is why neither words not images nor moving pictures will help him with this learning disability."