Why not? I've done it. It's perfectly legal. And mostly clear in terms of repercussions (other than old debts being resurrected far longer than they're supposed to). I walked away with no medical debt from when I was young and desperately poor. And I'm glad I did.
You're out of luck. That's why we are so reliant on the credit reporting agencies. There is some recourse if you already own assets. There are two types of loans. Secured and unsecured loans. Secured loans are backed by assets and those certainly can be forcibly removed. Unsecured loans (the vast majority of smaller credit card type loans), have no backing and the lost money is generally understood to be recovered through interest payments.
> if a debt goes to collections that ends up on your credit report. It's not like you can just ignore it forever.
I obviously don't endorse this, but in the US you absolutely can ignore it forever as long as it isn't student loan debt. Anything else large enough to sue for can be discharged through bankruptcy (which is comically simple in some states), and debts below that[1] will fall off your report after 7 years.
Your credit will tank for a bit, of course, but otherwise there are no real consequences.
1. I think FICO even has a minimum amount for negative items and doesn't consider medical debt at all, but don't quote me on that.
Tanking your credit has very real consequences if, say, you need a home loan in the next 7 years. You'll end up paying for that $100 "savings" x 1000 in the long run.
> Tanking your credit has very real consequences if, say, you need a home loan in the next 7 years. You'll end up paying for that $100 "savings" x 1000 in the long run
Coïncidentally (and anecdotally), I was recently proximate to a situation where a new hire had their offer cancelled on account of their credit report. It became clear they had a habit of entering into and defaulting on small contracts. Nothing obscene. But enough that, as a financial services firm, the employer found it to be an unacceptable risk. If that person were sued in any capacity, that fact pattern would come to light and illuminate them in a negative light.
Generally I agree, but pulling a credit report makes sense in their case - financial services, presumably regulated, with an employee who will be placed in a position of trust and responsibility.
I do think everyone should be given the chance to contextualize and explain things, though; going through a rough patch and defaulting on a couple of credit cards is different from habitually refusing to pay legitimate bills, for example, and absent some other negative indicator shouldn't be disqualifying.
If you're employing "ignore it until it goes away" as a debt mitigation strategy you probably aren't in a position to be buying a house (or a car, or whatever) any time soon. Having a 400 FICO score is not a "real consequence" to anyone who's in this situation.
At any rate, I'm just pointing out that it's a thing you can do, not advocating it as one you should do.
As an aside, I think a lot of the HN audience would be surprised at just how many people in America do take advantage of this. Being constantly broke really changes your decision making paradigm.
I don't think anyone is suggesting that this is some kind of legitimate cheat code for cheap software (I'm certainly not), but nevertheless it is possible.
I'm not sure why it's so controversial to point this out, but c'est la vie.
The debt will get sold (discounted) to a debt collector, whose entire business model is getting as much blood as possible from stones, regardless of how long it takes.
