Daily Digest – March 2. Cordray Sits Down For One-On-One Interview; High School Students Go Into Debt Buying

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CORDRAY SITS DOWN FOR ONE-ON-ONE INTERVIEW 

• In a wide-ranging interview where he dodged many questions about the independence of his agency and his future in Washington, D.C., and beyond, Richard Cordray, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, at least took a moment to mention the work his group is doing against abusive debt collectors and the sometimes egregious practices that individuals in that industry like to deploy. Asked whether most of the financial services industry is good or whether most of the industry is disposed to taking advantage of consumers, Cordray replied: “In the debt collection market, for example, there are people who do that. They will harass and abuse and oppress consumers, just to squeeze payments out of them, and hope and expect that if anybody ever tries to hold them accountable, they’ll be able to, you know, weasel out of it somehow.”

HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS GO INTO DEBT BUYING WITH ALTRUISTIC MOTIVES

• A group of high school students in Florida have started a charity that seeks to buy defaulted medical debt and wipe it off the records of individuals in their neighborhood. So far, the group of students has raised $700, which they say is enough to purchase $100,000 in unpaid debts that have been wiped clean. The group took their cues from John Oliver’s show that aired a segment last year on debt buying, and a group called RIP Medical Debt, which is attempting to do the same thing on a national scale.

OHIO CITIES STANDING UP AGAINST PROPOSAL TO CENTRALIZE TAX COLLECTION

• Cities in Ohio are standing up against Gov. John Kasich, who wants to centralize the taxes that business pay on their taxes at the state level. The intention of the proposal is to make Ohio a more business friendly state. More than 30 communities in the state have passed resolutions opposing the proposal.

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The Daily Digest is sponsored by TCN, a leading provider of cloud-based call center technology for enterprises, contact centers, BPOs, and collection agencies worldwide.