Rest in peace is not a term on the minds of bureaucrats at the FTC. The FTC has proposed new rules, no, not to protect you, the consumer, but to give debt collectors more rights. They have proposed allowing debt collectors to go after larger numbers of people linked to a person who died in an attempt to collect debts from the dead.
Did I hear that right? Debt collectors are allowed to try to pry money from corpses? Isn’t grave robbing a crime?
Not if you are a certified debt collector, says our esteemed FTC.
Joel Winston, the associate director of financial practices of the FTC says,
“The debt doesn’t disappear when the person dies… it’s still a valid debt, and the collector can still collect it.”
Read that sentence again. It didn’t come from the mouth of a debt collector. It came from the head of the office at the FTC that is supposed to protect us. So the agency in charge of protecting us allows grave robbers to run free. Night of the Living Dead now turns into Night of the FTC Grave Robbers. What next?
Why not allow debt collectors to dig up the dead and check for jewelry or rings that could be used to offset a cable bill that the dead person failed to pay before they died. After all, according to the FTC, all people living or dead have an obligation to pay.
Rest in Peace? I don’t think so.
