Ghost debt or zombie debt is long-standing debt, default, or unpaid and somehow haunts the alleged debtor. Usually refers to debts more than 3 years old, long forgotten or belonging to someone else - like someone with the same name or deceased parents. The amount owed may increase to hundreds or thousands of dollars more than originally owed. A good example of this is from George Lovelock. George missed Verizon's bill 11 cents and seven years later, the money was $ 4,000.00.
Sometimes never owed, owed by a deceased parent, or previously owed by an alleged, but previously fully paid, settled, disposed of through bankruptcy or a dismissed court case, is outside the statute of limitations, or if not can be legally billed, but collection agencies or other similar services aggressively seek to collect, often fraudulently.
Although the concept of phantom debt has been long enough, it has gained a lot of attention since the 1990s.
Very often, ghost debt collectors use intimidating, abusive or illegal tactics in an attempt to collect phantom debt that includes frequent phone calls, calls to the victim's workplace, or threats of frightening consequences against victims that sometimes include criminal arrest and/or prosecution. In the United States, such tactics violate the Fair Debt Collection Practice Act.
Sometimes, the source of a ghost debt is from a collector who buys a debt from another collector for a penny, then takes action that is not always legal to take it. Techniques used include demanding or threatening to sue, placing it on the victim's credit report, or promising to remove the negative credit marks in exchange for partial payments. When the latter happens, the agency will often not follow through, and will resell the debt to other similar agencies that will engage in the same practice.
Video Phantom debt
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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