Has anyone successfully baked a BTC-shaped pie?

[Amph]

it depends on the amount to be honest, for small amount, they will not track back you(tracking back someone for evading isn't free, it cost money, they can't do it everytime)

for big amount i'm waiting this year(june for taxation up to september) to see if i succeed in evading taxes or not lol, i know it's stupid, but bitcoin isn't regulated here and i don't want to pay taxes for this

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[AdotBdot]

Wow, America really is a horrible place in terms of laws, politics and freedom.
In the UK we have to earn a a certain amount and only then do we begin paying back our student loans which just comes off our salary as income tax. Anything not paid off after 25 years is just written off.

[btcbug]

Just do what the government does to pay off their debts... buy and machine and print the money! 

[btcbug]

I say just wait it out. The US student loan bubble should be bursting anytime now, and it will make the sub-prime mortgage bubble look like a rainy day. Banks can take houses back to recuperate some of their losses, but they won't be able to take all those educations back and re-sell them. Sooner or later they'll have to start cancelling substantial amounts of the student loans they've been fraudulently issuing for all these years.

I agree. Don't even think about paying off the whole debt. Focus on just making the absolute minimum, preferably before they start garnishing your wages and making this a legal hassle. If they wanted to, they could use this against people as a way of restricting their travel. Don't let it get to that point. Hopefully you can pay the minimum and still get by financially, then in a few years this whole thing will blow up and you might have better options.

[bryant.coleman]

Although I haven't heard of any incidents in which Bitcoins were used to evade the collections agencies, this comes quite close:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2646995/Divorcing-spouses-use-Bitcoin-hide-wealth-estranged-partners-court-battles.html
http://www.coindesk.com/divorcee-hide-assets-bitcoins/

Lol... Bitcoin is in its infancy... Within the next few years, we are going to discover many such uses of the BTC.

[nutildah]

I say just wait it out. The US student loan bubble should be bursting anytime now, and it will make the sub-prime mortgage bubble look like a rainy day. Banks can take houses back to recuperate some of their losses, but they won't be able to take all those educations back and re-sell them. Sooner or later they'll have to start cancelling substantial amounts of the student loans they've been fraudulently issuing for all these years.

I agree. Don't even think about paying off the whole debt. Focus on just making the absolute minimum, preferably before they start garnishing your wages and making this a legal hassle. If they wanted to, they could use this against people as a way of restricting their travel. Don't let it get to that point. Hopefully you can pay the minimum and still get by financially, then in a few years this whole thing will blow up and you might have better options.

I tried sending them nominal payments, but they will only accept the monthly payment in full as "payment," and each one is over $500. I just can't afford that, and they won't work with me to reduce the payment amount. So even if I sent them a check for $499, it wouldn't stop me from going into default.

The truth is, a lot of us got scammed when we were younger. Nobody told us to know better, but we were promised this bright, prosperous new economy in which anything was achievable "if you put your mind to it." The newer generation is getting screwed even harder now, and their degrees will be worth even less. A lot of the money goes to the administrators and regents who want to live like rockstars off the backs of poor, naive kids.

I don't really think I became a real adult until after age 27... Your brain isn't finished developing until age 24... Taking financial advantage of people younger than that just isn't right, especially when it comes to something like education.

[jjacob]

Wow, America really is a horrible place in terms of laws, politics and freedom.
In the UK we have to earn a a certain amount and only then do we begin paying back our student loans which just comes off our salary as income tax. Anything not paid off after 25 years is just written off.

That sounds like a recipe for disaster.
You are shifting the risk of you not earning well to the bank?
I wonder why banks would give education loans then.

[bryant.coleman]

Wow, America really is a horrible place in terms of laws, politics and freedom.
In the UK we have to earn a a certain amount and only then do we begin paying back our student loans which just comes off our salary as income tax. Anything not paid off after 25 years is just written off.

Nothing is "written off". By saying "written off", the bankers mean that the burden is transferred from a person to someone else. If the banks write-off a large part of their loans, then the remaining will become prohibitively expensive for us.

[lucullus]

I don't live in the U.S. but usually a collections agency is allowed to take most of your property if you can't pay so it doesn't really matter. They won't simply give up just because you're out of money they'll just take your car or anything else.

I thought even a collection agency has to sue you in a court of law and obtain a judgement against you before they could actually take anything from you.

Right?   

[nutildah]

I tried sending them nominal payments, but they will only accept the monthly payment in full as "payment," and each one is over $500. I just can't afford that, and they won't work with me to reduce the payment amount. So even if I sent them a check for $499, it wouldn't stop me from going into default.

Hmm, looks sketchy to me. Creditors will often do illegal things just assuming that the debtor won't go legal on them. They might be legally obligated to do a financial hardship reduction in your monthly payment if your income is below a certain level. That payment seems really high. It might be worth $50 bucks for a 30-minute consultation with a lawyer to look into this, or you could start by posting on a free legal advice forum. (even bitcointalk has a legal forum you might try there).

The problem is, the cost of living here is incredibly high and my job pays a mediocre salary. When you add in other bills, payments and repayments (and I don't even have a car), I barely have enough money for frozen burritos at the end of the month. The reason why they won't negotiate the monthly payment down, they claim, is because I already used up my deferrals and forbearance. But thanks for the advice, you are right, it will probably come to that point pretty soon.

[oldbute]

I think I would stop making any payments, use your money for living expenses, it's already in collections anyway.  Be suspicious of what collection agencies tell you.  They say anything to get any amount of payment, they most likely bought the debt at a discount and want to get what they can.  They will have to sue and get a court order to garnish your wages or take anything from you. Sounds like you don't have any assets to take and if you are barely making living a wage garnish maybe a lot cheaper than $500/month.  Who knows maybe they won't bother with courts and just write it off.  Not paying debt is not illegal, creditors take risk when borrowing money.  Part of that risk is they might not get paid back. Definitely take this with grain of salt and talk to lawyer though.

"If you default on a federally-insured student loan, the Department of Education can garnish up to 15% of your disposable income without a court judgment. State and federal tax authorities also may undertake collection remedies without first going to court."

http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/what-unsecured-debt.html

[gentlemand]

Wow, America really is a horrible place in terms of laws, politics and freedom.
In the UK we have to earn a a certain amount and only then do we begin paying back our student loans which just comes off our salary as income tax. Anything not paid off after 25 years is just written off.

That sounds like a recipe of disaster.
You are shifting the risk of you not earning well to the bank?
I wonder why banks would give education loans then.

In the UK tuition fees for college and university are a very recent development. When I was a nipper university was free and they gave you free money to live on.

Our education loans aren't provided by conventional banking channels. They're backed by the government who probably fully expect a large proportion to never get paid back.

As for the OP's dilemma, it's going to be a toughie to slip into crypto without leaving a paper trail somewhere. Cash into ATMs would work. Lamassu ATMs come with ID verification disabled. I think it would depend on what state you're in.

[ajareselde]

@OP I dont know what are the laws in your country, but in whatever form you recieve your paycheck, one part of it (depending on local laws, here its 30%)
has to be paid out to debt claiming previous to releasing the rest to you. So what it means is that, even tho you can possibly be paid out in btc, you probably cant take
your whole paycheck because it is on your boss to pay the penalty if they see by records that you are working and getting paid, and he isnt sending them part of your pay.

On the other hand, im in a position where all my accounts within my country are blocked due to debts, but i found a way to still do my bussines through foreign banks,
that are not affected by any limitations. But if i am to be hired by local bussiness owner, he would still have to cut a part of my paycheck for debt collection.

cheers

[ArticMine]

IANAL. In these situations legal advice is strongly recommended.

The critical difference here is that a wage garnishment is typically limited to 20%-30% of the take home pay while a bank account garnishment can go up to 100% of the funds on deposit. So if the employer pays in Bitcoin or Cash the creditors are limited to the 20%-30%; however if the employer deposits the wage into a bank the creditors can get 100% of the wages by a bank account garnishment. The other thing to keep in mind is that collection agencies typically go after the easy assets and that one of the purposes of collection calls is to try to get the debtor to reveal information about his or her assets or sources of income.
 
For this reason anyone who is afraid of creditors would avoid the banking system and stick to cash and crypto-currency unless they go into bankruptcy or some kind of creditor proposal. There is a reason for the popularity of cheque cashing stores.

There is also the question of practicality it is way cheaper for a creditor to get a bank account garnishment than to get the courts to force a debtor to reveal a Bitcoin private key.

One of the advantages of having some XBT in this kind of situation is that the XBT can be used to pay for legal advice, particularly as is often the case when collection agencies step on the wrong side of the law.


Edit: The choice between Bitcoin and a bank account in this situation could easily be between the creditors getting 30% of take home pay or the creditors getting 100% of take home pay.

[btreehouse]

 frankenmint  okay so here's your problem:  As soon as a judgement is made to garnish your wages, it will then become a liability of your employer, NOT you, to repay the money.

---
I think you stated that wrong, the liability still is with the borrower. The employer is just the group in between the situation and ordered to garnish the wages. If that the employee quits and works somewhere else, that liability follows that employee.

[oblivi]

As far as I know your best bet for this is LocalBitcoins and meeting locally (in person) with trusted sellers and exchange the BTC for cash, so no extra information is needed.

[687_2]

Has anyone successfully evaded collections agencies by exchanging fiat into BTC?

Yes

I made a nominal payment to try to reset the 270-day rule (turns out they only accept the monthly payment in full as criteria for "payment" -- I'm not sure if this is legal or not).

Yes, whether you pay $0 or $499.99 on a $500 note, you're in default.

So I quickly do some research and find out that not only can student loan collection agencies garnish your wages with a court order, but they can also freeze/empty your bank account and take back any tax refund money you might have.

Yes

So my question is, how feasible is it to use cryptocurrency should I have to hide money from these debt collectors?

The US is #1 in the world for money laundering (serious). Delaware C-corps and Wyoming and Nevada LLCs. How do you think the CIA moves all that money around for their black ops, and why do you think it's called "the company"?

[theskillzdatklls]

i would seriously just consider switching countries, converting what you have into btc and cash, moving somewhere more btc friendly and starting over there.

i know a friend that had a situation nearly identical to you and did something along the lines of what i just said. he couldn't be happier.

if you can mature past this irrational attachment to your country and rural area, your life conditions will improve.

[QuestionAuthority]

You need to talk to a consumer credit counseling service in your state. They can help you work it out and sometimes can negotiate a lower payment or extended time to pay.

http://www.consumercredit.com/financial-education/student-loans/repaying-overview.aspx

[louise123]

sell everything you own / borrow as much money as you possibly can - FROM BANKS , empty your fiat currency account(s) , convert all your available currency into bitcoin through anonymous means (in person cash for bitcoin) , mix it thoroughly and put it on a flash drive , then declare bankruptcy or AND expatriate from the country , and then convert bitcoins back into fiat currency through anonymous means ... btw what i am suggesting is *highly* illegal and would constitute committing bank/credit fraud ... but it would fix your money woes ... so ... depending on just how desperate your situation is ... might be worth it ...

^^^That.
Or you can stay there and continue being fucked for the rest of your life.
And now that I mention it, you do realize that you only got one life right?
There is no afterlife, so it is up to you how you want to spend/waste/live your life.  

PS: You are experiencing what I call "modern day slavery"