Bad Paper
Chasing Debt from Wall Street to the Underworld

Over the last 15 years of my legal career, I have handled a lot of bankruptcy and collection matters and the collection agents have always been this sort of faceless, nameless adversary. It has been a true love/hate relationship running the complete spectrum. For a period of time I had developed a g......more

3.5 stars rounded up to 4. Well written, interesting, sometimes rollicking, sometimes depressing view into the world of unsecured debts written off by credit card companies, payday lenders, cell phone providers, and the like, and how those debts are ultimately collected. (The reference to “the underw......more

I had been listening to This American Life recently, and the name of the show was "Magic Words". The theme of the show was how sometimes there are certain words that are said or mentioned that have unintended consequences. Jake Halpern was interviewed during the show; he told his story of interviewi......more

It stands to reason that, in a nation with more than 25 Trillion in debt, collecting the debt that goes bad, or is in arrears, would be big business. Collecting "bad paper" is not only big business but often shady business that lives in the shadows and casts a long, dark pall on American culture. Ame......more

Full disclosure: I actually work in the debt buying and servicing industry, so as a participant of the "Secret World" that Halpern mentions in the title, I'm not exactly a disinterested observer here. Nevertheless, Halpern's book is one that I frequently recommend to new employees at my company for......more