Interesting Re Debt

Our primary purpose was to spread information about the workings of this secondary debt market,' said Andrew Ross. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

A group of Occupy Wall Street activists has bought almost $15m of Americans' personal debt over the last year as part of the Rolling Jubilee project to help people pay off their outstanding credit.

Rolling Jubilee, set up by Occupy's Strike Debt group following the street protests that swept the world in 2011, launched on 15 November 2012. The group purchases personal debt cheaply from banks before "abolishing" it, freeing individuals from their bills.

By purchasing the debt at knockdown prices the group has managed to free $14,734,569.87 of personal debt, mainly medical debt, spending only $400,000.

"We thought that the ratio would be about 20 to 1," said Andrew Ross, a member of Strike Debt and professor of social and cultural analysis at New York University. He said the team initially envisaged raising $50,000, which would have enabled it to buy $1m in debt.

"In fact we've been able to buy debt a lot more cheaply than that."...

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The above is from a current Guardian news report.

s to know they can stop paying and get off easily. 

The debt looks like it is charged off, as those kinds of numbers indicated the debt was sold, and the borrower's credit dinged. What they are doing does not look useful, at all, unless the debt is bought directly from the bank.  If one can buy one's own debt for pennies on the dollar that may help, but banks don't do that.  Logically, I suppose, they do not want debtor

The focus on debt is a good thing.