
John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight' - chirau
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxUAntt1z2c
======
sethbannon
I'm not aware of any other show that so seamlessly combines rip-roaringly
funny comedy with essential insight into the way our society and system of
government is deeply flawed. And on top of that, he even manages to direct
action to fix the issues he draws attention to -- taking down the FCC website
being one example[1].

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/03/john-
oliv...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/03/john-oliver-fcc-
website-net-neutrality)

~~~
coderdude
It's a good show (he's funny and you learn stuff) but it's way too preachy. He
gets just a little too excited about things that are basically impossible for
anyone to get excited about. Clearly pandering to the young, left crowd. I'm
sure it makes some people feel very warm at night but it gives me a bad taste
in my mouth after binge watching.

~~~
bko
My main problem with John Oliver is that he often chimes in on subjects he
doesn't know anything about with folksy common sense logic that is often
wrong. I remember him mocking some system for using tapes for storage on the
belief that a technology that is so old cannot possibly be useful in modern
technologies. In his latest clip, he mocks information being passed by Excel.
How does he think things happen? Some magical global technological system with
perfect information and transparency? Perhaps he should try to build such a
system.

By critiquing a system that he knows nothing about makes the criticism ring
hollow.

~~~
ritchiea
At the end of the day it's a comedy show not a news show and his job is to
make people laugh. You can't make people laugh with jokes about insider domain
knowledge only possessed by experts.

If you consider the constraint that Last Week Tonight is primarily a comedy
show themed around important newsworthy issues rather than an investigative
journalism show it's hard to imagine it done any better.

~~~
partiallypro
> At the end of the day it's a comedy show not a news show and his job is to
> make people laugh

He and Jon Stewart keep (kept in the case of Jon) using this excuse when they
get things wrong, but when they get things right they take all the glory they
can get. The show(s) have to have some sort of accountability.

For example Couric was just ripped for adding 6 seconds of dead air on a
documentary....but that's literally what The Daily Show had been doing for
years, making people look like idiots (so it fits their segment narrative).
That's all good fun until you realize young people think people like Stewart
and Oliver are trustworthy news sources.

I like what they do in many cases, but I despise this excuse that it's "just"
a comedy show. Maybe NBC nightly news should just add an in-studio audience
that laughs and suddenly they can get away with every screw up.

~~~
ritchiea
Can you give a specific example of someone who was manipulated to make look
bad on the Daily Show? Most of their interviews are with people the host
disagrees with but are happy to share their views (gun rights advocates,
abortion rights advocates, etc). Typically guests and participants in segments
are not being manipulated. I can't say it's never been done but it's certainly
not an epidemic at that show.

~~~
partiallypro
You're joking right? The entire interview segments are spliced and edited.
Pauses are added for comedic effect, they splice different questions with
different answers. It's not a single example, it's literally every interview
segment.

That doesn't mean I agree with the person they are interviewing, or that that
person isn't ignorant...but there is no way you can see their reporting as
objective.

------
ColinWright
Georestricted:

    
    
        The uploader has not made this
        video available in your country
    

Someone else provided a different link:

[https://facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=912968418832168&id...](https://facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=912968418832168&id=479042895558058)

That returns with:

    
    
        Sorry, this page isn't available
    
        The link you followed may be broken,
        or the page may have been removed.
    

I look forward to the day we finally realise we are out of the transition
period between not having the web at all, and the web working properly, with
content makers being properly resourced and rewarded. Good job I'll live
forever - if I have a normal lifespan I doubt I'd see it.

~~~
a_bonobo
Julia Reda, MP for the German Pirate Party with Greens/EFA in the European
Parliament, has recently launched a campaign to introduce EU laws against
geoblocking: [https://juliareda.eu/2016/05/end-
geoblocking/](https://juliareda.eu/2016/05/end-geoblocking/)

So there's a little bit of movement, I guess?

~~~
mseebach
It's unlikely that a law on geo blocking in the EU will have much effect over
US content.

But besides that, it's a great idea that will entrench cable companies for a
few more years and delay the transition to streaming by forcing streaming
services to compete against every single cable and satellite operator in the
EU at the same time (cable/sat firms aren't part of the digital single market,
so they can keep carrying on). Is there content that is specifically relevant
to Estonians, but for various reasons thorny to license in France? That's
going to suck for the Estonians.

One might assume that Netflix (or another one of the streaming services) might
grab the broadcast rights to a major sporting event (traditionally the domain
of cable/satellite, and the last good reason to keep this around for many
consumers) -- this proposal makes sure that day won't happen until they can
grab the rights for the entire EU zone, which is obviously hugely expensive.
It's not hard to imagine that it might make more sense (and be a lot easier)
to grab the rights in a single, small-ish, well connected market (say
Netherland) as a pilot, then leave, say, the UK for a few years later until
broadband outside the cities get good enough to support at decent HD stream.

Major sporting events is of course only one such example. Plenty of content
will suffer the same fate.

Another victim is license fee supported content. Especially the BBC relies on
re-licensing high quality content in other european markets. This income
subsidises the UK operation. If forced to not geoblock this content, the BBC
will have to chose between foregoing significant licensing income, or to stop
streaming altogether.

------
dvcrn
As a non-american guy that has never seen John Oliver before, I found it very
hard to sit through the entire thing until the end, though the payoff was
definitely worth it.

This guys looks to me like he's been in TV for a little too long and tries
very hard to find a audience with very simple jokes (that feel kind of forced)
amplified by background laughter.

He has the right idea and did the right thing but I personally would have
found it more enjoyable without the jokes.

~~~
dominotw
I too find it too hard to watch without cringing. He has a whole team of
writers and the best they come up with is some sarcastic comments at someone's
expense. Laughing at people is not 'social commentary', its lowest form of
dumb comedy with horrible laugh tracks ( i thought we were done with silly
laugh tracks ?)

I always thought this was a dying genre but seems like young ppl are into it?

~~~
fixermark
Vaudeville never dies; it just changes costumes. ;)

------
zimpenfish
The baffling thing to me is that this is already discharged debt - "out of
statute medical debt from Texas", "medical debt they no longer had to pay" \-
and how on earth is it legal to try and collect that?

~~~
dvcc
It's still debt, it's not as if the money is not owed it's just debt that has
no legal repercussions for not paying. From my understanding at least.

So really he saved them from harassing phone calls, not really the money
itself.

~~~
desigooner
If the debt collectors somehow manage to trick the debtors into acknowledging
the debt, the debt clock is reset & it goes back on to your credit report.

~~~
nickysielicki
What constitutes acknowledgement?

~~~
GreaterFool
I think the options are two: bully and harass the debtors until they pay or go
to courts and try to get the default judgement.

As the program points out what they buy is name and number. So I suppose if
the person involved showed up in court and demanded any sort of confirmation
of debt (like original bills perhaps?) then the case would be dismissed. After
all the company needs some proof. But they overload the courts and if no one
shows up to defend then the default judgement goes in favor of the debt
collector.

And then they go and collect with the power of law behind them.

This is crazy but that's how they roll in the land of the free :)

~~~
ben1040
The statute of limitations applies to whether the creditor can go to court.
Since these debts we're talking about are older than that, getting a judgment
is off the table.

That's also why they were sold for a fraction of a penny on the dollar -- the
only way you could collect on them is to call the debtors and hassle them. At
this point those debtors are probably also wise to the fact that you have no
legal power to enforce.

------
orblivion
There's a program called The Rolling Jubilee which has been doing this for a
few years. I think the idea is that it encourages people to help pay off the
next person's debt, since the amount they were forgiven is much more than it
cost to buy it:

[http://rollingjubilee.org/](http://rollingjubilee.org/)

I believe that this is an offshoot of the Occupy movement.

~~~
xhrpost
"But as of December 31st, 2013, we have stopped accepting new donations."
Would love to see someone new come in and start doing the same.

~~~
cdetrio
The pivot from rollingjubilee.org (which uses donations to buy discounted debt
and abolish it) to debtcollective.org (where debtors can register and organize
"debt strikes") was explained in a NYT column[1]:

> _Until now, we have worked in the secondary debt market, using crowdfunded
> donations to buy portfolios of medical and educational debts for pennies on
> the dollar, just as debt collectors do. Only, instead of collecting on them,
> we abolish them, operating under the belief that people shouldn’t go into
> debt for getting sick or going to school. [.....] But this approach has its
> limits. Federal loans, for example, are guaranteed by the government, and
> debtors can be freed of them — via bankruptcy — only under exceedingly rare
> circumstances. That means they aren’t sold at steep discounts and remain out
> of our reach. What’s more, America’s mountain of student debt is too immense
> for the Jubilee to make a significant dent in it. Real change will require
> more organized actions like those taken by the Corinthian 15._

Its not surprising that they lost traction after the pivot. Buying discounted
debt is a tactic which respects the logic of the market. Debt strikes go
against the cultural norm of treating debt as a moral obligation.

1\. [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/28/opinion/a-strike-
against-s...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/28/opinion/a-strike-against-
student-debt.html)

------
rm2889
If debt is trading at pennies on the dollar, and I owe someone 5k, what's
stopping me from borrowing 50 or 100 bucks from a friend (if I dont have it)
and buying back my debt? Do you need to buy in bulk?

Here's an idea - aggregate debt at pennies on the dollar and sell it back to
the debtor at twice the amount it'll still be pennies on the dollar and you'll
make a nice profit.

~~~
awesomerobot
>Here's an idea - aggregate debt at pennies on the dollar and sell it back to
the debtor at twice the amount it'll still be pennies on the dollar and you'll
make a nice profit.

That's essentially what a lot of debt collectors will accept. If you have debt
in collection, sometimes you can offer them a lump sum instead of the whole
amount and they'll take it because they're looking to simply profit.

At that point it's likely your credit is already ruined though... which is a
whole different topic to broach.

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "At that point it's likely your credit is already ruined though... which is
a whole different topic to broach."

In the UK at least getting passed to a debt collector should have no impact on
your credit score. It's when they decide to go further and recoup it through
court that you start to get hurt. This is my experience at least. It makes
sense as I know many people who have been passed to debt collectors for debts
they didn't owe so it would be a mess if that effected their credit.

~~~
jdmichal
It doesn't matter in the US either. What matters here is days late. Anything
over 30 days gets noted under the credit line, and will stick around there for
a couple years or so. Unsure what happens to the mark once the debt is
settled.

~~~
awesomerobot
After it's passed to collections you can't do much, it's too late. A "couple
years" is 7 years. The US credit industry is absurd.

------
MichaelBurge
You could probably use debt forgiveness as a collection technique: If the
person doesn't agree to start paying it back, you threaten to forgive the
entire amount all at once in a way that is not tax-advantageous. Now you owe
taxes on your $80k of extra income(forgiven debt), and the government is less
lenient than banks when they're collecting tax debt.

They might eventually be able to get it discharged, but it'd require them to
declare bankruptcy.

I don't know: It might be too subtle to scare people with. The kinds of people
who could easily understand this tactic in a one-page letter are probably not
the kinds of people in debt.

~~~
talmand
How exactly is forgiven debt considered income?

~~~
MichaelBurge
As creditor, you file a form 1099-C with the IRS:

[https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1099c.pdf](https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-
pdf/f1099c.pdf)

The borrower also gets a copy, and the IRS will know to look for it when the
borrower files his taxes.

~~~
zimpenfish
Just to add a bit of context around that PDF - "Topic 431 - Canceled Debt – Is
It Taxable or Not?"

[https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc431.html](https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc431.html)

------
jccc
The title of this post focuses on one aspect of the episode in a way that has
badly skewed our discussion.

The point of the episode is not John Oliver's Oprah stunt, but rather how the
debt collection industry works.

[The original title is/was: "John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of
it on 'Last Week Tonight'"]

------
neiled
As has been mentioned elsewhere, it seems the real 'value' of this debt to
people buying it, is not the debt itself because it can't legally be enforced,
but the personal information that goes along with it.

~~~
acveilleux
At the price they paid, it's around $6.66 per person. They'd have paid a lot
less for a lot more debt if they hadn't bought medical debt. And that's not
even resorting to illegal means.

------
vittore
Why there is no non-profit here that gets donations and spent them to wipe out
medical and general debt that is the cheapest available on the market right
now? Or are there ?

~~~
goda90
There are some. Like [http://rollingjubilee.org/](http://rollingjubilee.org/)

~~~
dannypgh
The tactic seems questionable. I'd rather give money to people who provide
legal assistance to folks getting hassled by debt collectors, and spread
information about people's rights under the FDCPA and other laws.

The reason for that being, buying up bad paper raises the value of it, whereas
letting people know their rights lowers the value of it. If bad paper was
worth less, debt originators would have stronger incentives to work something
out with their insolvent customers rather than sell to shady debt collectors.

------
tyoma
Wont the debtors have to report the forgiven debt as income on their taxes,
potenially triggering a very difficult tax situation?

~~~
AstroJetson
Site is here:
[https://www.ripmedicaldebt.org/](https://www.ripmedicaldebt.org/)

Actually it's pretty simple. They figure out who needs the debt relief. They
then go buy the debt for pennies on the dollar from one of the companies that
has it. Then they forget about it. (I'd say they just delete the Excel file
it's in, but there is lots of negative karma going on above this post about
how wonderful Excel is)

From their website "Through sophisticated data analytics, RIP analyzes its
medical debt portfolios to pinpoint those who are most in need of relief and
then negotiates to purchase this debt for a significantly reduced amount –
rates typically made available only to large organizations in the debt buying
industry.

Once this debt is purchased – debtors are unburdened of this unpaid item."

So Oliver just gave them $14+ million in debt that he paid pennies on the
dollar for and the are going to ignore it. Remember it's been written off (as
a tax benefit) already, so it's only the debt people that care about it. Last
guy that cared got paid by Oliver, so he's good to go.

~~~
joshstrange
Hmm, that's the right site but right now all you get is the WP install
walkthrough....

------
pessimizer
I was a little disappointed in how this story developed; it started with a
family being destroyed by medical debt, and I thought it was going to develop
into a discussion of medical debt, which accounts for 60% of bankruptcies in
the U.S.[1]. Instead, it just talked about the buying and selling of debt,
which is a legitimate business (often unregulated and operated by scum.) I'm
not sure what he was calling for, here. That companies be required to hold on
to their own debt?

I'm happy about the debt he forgave, though. An organization called Rolling
Jubilee[2] does it without a tv show - you can buy someone's debt, too. I
didn't notice a shout out; did I just miss it?

edit: learned from the comment above me that they've stopped doing it, and are
now The Debt Collective[3], an advocacy organization.

[1] [https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/health/managing-medical-
bill...](https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/health/managing-medical-
bills/nerdwallet-health-study-estimates-56-million-americans-65-struggle-
medical-bills-2013/)

[2] [http://rollingjubilee.org/](http://rollingjubilee.org/)

[3] [http://blog.debtcollective.org/](http://blog.debtcollective.org/)

~~~
scotty79
> legitimate business (often unregulated and operated by scum.)

That's comedy gold. Wish John used that line.

> I'm not sure what he was calling for, here. That companies be required to
> hold on to their own debt?

I think he's calling for regulation. At least some mechanisms to ensure that
the debt is factual. Maybe some mechanisms that would ensure people can't
collect the debt that they can't legally enforce. Maybe some mechanisms that
would prevent accepting debt by default when someone doesn't show up to court.
All these things lead to much abuse. Basically something that would address
the problems he highlighted.

------
ChicagoBoy11
I'm obviously wrong about this, but I'm surprised there isn't a greater
arbitrage opportunity in this -- if one could average out just $10 in
collection on average, you'd make a sizable profit on the debt he bought... I
wonder if you were to just call and tell these people you bought these debts,
and if they'd like to make a donation to help you keep doing this work in the
future, I'm curious if it could be self-sustaining...

~~~
1024core
The cost of collecting that $10 may turn out to be more than $10....

------
S_A_P
In a former life I was a developer for a collections agency. I can confirm
that we got data from financial institutions in a variety of formats. Most of
the time they were PGP encrypted, sometimes as low as 56 bit IIRC. This was in
2007 so I have slept since then.

------
tlrobinson
Note that this didn't actually cost them $15M, they bought the debt for $60K.

~~~
evolve2k
Umm isn't that sort of the whole point.

~~~
tlrobinson
It's not at all obvious how much they actually paid, and comparing it to
Oprah's $8M car giveaway is certainly dramatic but pretty disingenuous. It's
unlikely the debtors would have ever ended up repaying anything close to $15M
(in fact, presumably closer to $60K)

~~~
nacs
He stated exactly how much they paid for that $15m debt in the video and even
how they wrote off most of the cost of the taxes they would have had to pay it
in the video.

~~~
tlrobinson
Of course, that's where I got the $60k figure from, but that one sentence
could easily have been missed by anyone dazzled by the big number in the
headline and comparison to Oprah's giveaway, assuming they even watched the
whole 20 minute video in the first place.

------
SCAQTony
At the 17:06 mark is when he drops the surprise news about buying up the debt.

------
pfarnsworth
Aren't there tax implications for forgiving the debt?

~~~
zimpenfish
Maybe.

"Topic 431 - Canceled Debt – Is It Taxable or Not?"
[https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc431.html](https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc431.html)

------
MrJagil
There was a terrific story about this in the NYT a while back
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8182953](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8182953)

"This is one of the most unbelievable articles I've ever read. If you didn't
read it all the way through, do so over lunch or something; it's amazing."

------
dghughes
Can the debt John forgave be resurrected by another debt collection agency?

The video mentioned several scenarios where debt that's seemingly past it
collection date or expired is still desired by these collection companies.

Or is forgiving the debt officially the only way of forever getting rid of it
without fear of it coming back from the dead.

------
ff10
Wasn't there a similar initiative in the aftermath of the recent financial
crisis? With the difference that private people could help out indebted
individuals on a smaller scale with some proxy gross debt buyer?

------
throwaway745234
Time to start a benevolent/not-for-profit dept collection company that buys
dept and then requests their clients in dept repay 0.5% of the original amount
they owed just to cover the costs.

------
nthacker
I have a question:

Isn't the real reason that these debt-buying companies(and the evils that come
with it) exist because of bad-lending and in this case, an overpriced,
inefficient health-care system?

------
trengrj
Georestricted in Australia.. Anyone have a summary?

~~~
barbs
You can see it on Facebook:

[https://facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=912968418832168&id...](https://facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=912968418832168&id=479042895558058)

~~~
sdwisely
also in australia:

"Sorry, this page isn't available The link you followed may be broken, or the
page may have been removed."

~~~
barbs
Sorry, was on my phone. This works:

[https://www.facebook.com/LastWeekTonight/videos/912968418832...](https://www.facebook.com/LastWeekTonight/videos/912968418832168/)

~~~
sdwisely
that one works, thanks!

------
bruce_one
Anyone want to start a Kickstarter/Indiegogo to do something similar?

(Eg, raise money and use it to buy debt and do nothing with it)

I'd back it :-)

------
th0ma5
If a company writes off a debt, then haven't tax payers already paid the debt?

------
rememberlenny
Serious question: Does that count as a 15 million dollar tax write off?

------
bayesian_horse
Make Donald Drumpf again!

------
anonymfus
Spoiler in the title.

------
sergiotapia
I don't get how an insurance won't cover something. Isn't that the point of
Obama forcing you to buy insurance these days?

~~~
efa
Yes you are supposed to buy insurance (though many just take the penalty).
Many Obamacare plans are pretty crappy with low max pay outs. It drives me
crazy when people don't read the plans they are buying. My plan has a huge
deductible (10k) but no max pay out. So basically I pay 100% for everything
but if I ever need some serious hospital time I'd only be out 10k. (And it's
very expensive).

~~~
efaref
I'm really going to miss the NHS when the tories have finished dismantling it.
:(

~~~
kiruwa
NHS and ACA really have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

The NHS has serious problems related to accountability, the typical problem
with huge multi-level government bureaucracies. Honestly, the NHS has similar
problems to the American public education system, for mostly the same reasons.

The ACA has the serious problem that it was explicitly sold as a way to
contain costs both at an individual and aggregate level. That has pretty much
been exposed as a lie.

The ACA has been good for the narrow band of people who were included in the
expanded medicaid coverage, but it's not too hard to imagine a separate (and
much simpler) bill that accomplished that part of the bill, without the
massive rework of healthcare for the middle class.

