what's to stop one from living off of credit cards?

[hellokeith]

My grandmother was in her mid 80's with failing health. The last 3-4 years she was kinda irresponsible with her excellent credit and didn't really care what her loser kids (my mom excluded) did with her credit cards. At the time of death, she had ~$45k in debt.

The creditors/collectors would have got her house except for a Texas law dealing with homestead and an heir with disability (my loser aunt). They did get $3k in the bank that was in the will to go directly to my mom. They didn't get much else.

So basically the creditors got screwed out of ~$42k, my mom got screwed out of $3k, while the other children who racked up most of that debt paid no consequence. Guess it does pay to be corrupt.. :thumbsdown:

 

[wiredspider]

i suppose you could be "legit" and screw them by signing up for those payment protector plans where it wipes out the debt if the person dies....

 

[bobsmith1492]

Basic morality, perhaps

 

[PepePeru]

pay your taxes and you'll be fine.

you can't get thrown in jail for being in debt to a cc company.

 

[D1gger]

My brother did basically this, although I'm not sure he meant to. He had run up all of his credit cards and his line of credit to the max, and most of the spending was for his kids and a vacation. He never returned from the vacation. He died in a somewhat suspicious car accident. I was left to break the news to all of his creditors that he had a balance of $27 in his savings account and nothing he owned was worth the cost of picking it up. It has taken almost a year now, but the only entity that hasn't forgiven the debt and written it off is the Canadian Revenue Agency (Canada's IRS). They are still after the $113 he owed in taxes for his last year.