Terry Mitchell

How Laws Are Inconsistent About Debt



Posted: Friday, January 08, 2010

by Terry Mitchell
http://commenterry.blogs.com

If you were to go into a restaurant and eat a meal and then intentionally walk out without paying, would you be in danger of being convicted of a crime? Absolutely. If you were to stay at a hotel and then deliberately leave without paying the tab, would you be putting yourself at risk of being arrested? Of course you would (if you don't believe it, ask actor Randy Quaid and his wife, Evi, who were recently picked up by the police for just such an offense).

However, if you bought a truck load of furniture on credit and then refused to pay for it when the bill came due, you would be subject only to civil litigation, with the worst case scenario being repossession of the furniture and the possible ruination of your credit. Similarly, if you bought a lot of stuff with your credit card and failed to pay even the minimum payment, the credit card company might haul you into civil court to force you to pay up. However, in neither case would you be in danger of joining Mr. and Mrs. Quaid in the clinker.

I've often wondered why this is the case. To me, refusing to pay for goods and/or services one has received is the same as stealing. So why is stealing food from a restaurant or services from a hotel considered a criminal act to be investigated by law enforcement, while stealing furniture from a store or money from a credit card company viewed as a civil matter for the store or credit card company to pursue? This is a complete inconsistency in the law. It doesn't make sense and it's not fair.
 
Terry Mitchell is a software engineer, freelance writer, amateur political analyst, and blogger from Virginia, USA. He posts a least one article a day to his blog - http://commenterry.blogs.com - on subjects such as current events, politics, technology, society and culture, religion, health and well-being, self improvement, personal finance, trivia, and sports. He is also the owner of a new privacy-enhanced search engine - http://www.SearchMost.com.

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