I think the "incompetence of others" falls under the broader rubric of "bad luck." And I'm going to say that managing your money in this instance is being able to appropriately recognize the error. And managing your money is also staying on top of someone else's incompetence to fix it.

Hmm. Here's some quotes from my posts in this thread... To be fair, I don't think it is reasonable to read this as saying that I've taken the position that someone is necessarily to blame for being in debt or a debt going into collection:

Not sure how many times I've said this in this thread, but the best way of identifying a fraudulent debt collection call is to know how much you owe to who. Yes, debts can get sold, but staying on top of your finances and being proactive is the best defense against fraud.

In that case, isn't your strategy fucking with your credit rating? Or do credit agencies recognize medical debt is all screwed up too? Seems dangerous...

I would agree the medical/insurance interface in the U.S. is pretty severely fucked up and deeply in need of reform. But there are a couple things I'd point out. First, having to deal with the hospital's "collections" department isn't the same thing has having a bill sold to a debt collector. The "collections"…

Read the rest of the thread—I've answered this point probably a half dozen times. You still know the amount. And knowing your finances gives you a much, much better basis to know from the get-to whether any collections call has any thread of truth to it or not. The point isn't never having debt. The point isn't…

Standards in law school seem to have dropped precipitously. Alan Henry wrote the original article. You are replying to my post, not his.

Managing your finances does not mean you will never get a fraudulent collections call. It just means you have a much better basis to judge whether the call is fraudulent.

Exactly. You were vigilant. That's managing your finances. Somewhere people seem to be twisting what I've said into a statement that managing your finances will mean you never get a call from a collections department. That isn't what I've said. Managing your finances means knowing—with a high degree of…

And starting off by calling someone a smarmy troll is the appropriate way to deal with things? And your post doesn't smack of any self-righteousness at all, does it? Once your conduct is above reproach it seems like it becomes fair to throw stones. But that isn't where you are is it?

I'll say this again—I've said this in response to a number of similar comments—you may not know who the debt is owed to because of sold accounts, but you should know how much. And you should be able to determine who holds the debt without a huge amount of work.

I'd say good bookkeeping did fix that, frankly. You knew what happened, knew you shouldn't owe them money, and managed the claim by going back to AT&T and working it out.

The first situation you described doesn't seem like what the article is discussing—an assumption address = person. The second might have been fraud. In both cases, it seemed like you were on top of your finances and weren't snowed. Glad it worked out for you.

Fair enough. But I'd argue your situation is pretty atypical. I'd also note that if the debt was nearly a decade old, I'm wondering why the statute of limitations didn't bar the claim against you.

Agreed, but you should still know that there is an unsatisfied debt of $1000 out there. If the call is really fraudulent, not sure how they would know about the amount owed, so even if I know I owed Chase $1K and the debt may have been sold, I'm still going to be able to figure out the collector demanding $2500 is a…

Why does everyone accusing me of sophistry blithely skip over the part where I say "I recognize that people can hit set-backs and situations where they end up in that position due to bad luck"? Is it in invisible ink that only I can read? And managing debt is not incidental to things moving into collection…

I'm mortally offended. Someone on the internet called me a name. Oh noes.

WTF? Just where the fuck did I manage to offend you so deeply? Is it really that awful or elitist to suggest the best way of avoiding collection fraud is to keep on top of your finances? To be 100% honest, I really hadn't considered confusing medical charges and insurance reconciliations. I've already admitted…

Read the entire thread. And I'd suggest that admonishing someone for being elitist—which is what you seem to be trying to do—is kind of high horsey too.

But then you wouldn't have to ask three questions to figure out its phony, right?