Through the Looking Glass

Tick, tock, tick, tock. "T" minus one week until the first of many payments goes late.

I am so very much looking forward to receiving their calls because I don't think they're quite going to know what to do with me. I have considered, for example, telling them that I have committed suicide and that they are talking to my next of kin, the executor of my estate, my attorney, or some other such nonsense. I have considered pulling credit reports on someone I know is dead, just to see what it says. Will there be a public records entry for "Certificate of Death"? I don't know and I imagine few know the answer to that question, because who has occasion to pull a dead man's credit report? Yes, yes, I realize that pulling credit on anyone without authorization is against the law. But what harm? A dead man doesn't need credit, even though they're the only one who could lawfully use it.

Sure, I will engage them at first, but I aim to spend little time beating around the bush: You are not getting paid because I do not care for your lending practices, and I no longer have any regard for the sanctity of written agreements with those who do not wish to act under them in good faith. In fact, now that I think about it, there is an implied duty of good faith and fair dealing in every contract. I think I'll send them a "preservation of evidence" letter instructing them to retain every document in their possession having to do with any of my accounts over their entire life span and ask them to point out exactly when and where that implied term was excluded with regard to each of my three accounts with them. That might be particularly difficult for them given that not one of those three accounts originated with Chase -- they were all picked up by Chase when they absorbed another bank.

What else is there for me to tell them? "God appeared to me in a dream and told me not to pay you any more"? What does any of that banter matter? I don't care about what they do to my credit report, and I'm not scared of being sued, because then they'll be on my turf. Without fear, what leverage will they have? I'll be all to happy to tell them that I'm going to set the phone on my desk and they can talk until they're blue but they shouldn't expect to receive any further reply from me except in the form of an answer to a lawsuit. And then what more will there be for them to say?