Bad Paper ─ Chasing Debt from Wall Street to the Underworld

"A trip to the underworld of debt collection, where bankers team up with ex-burglars and few rules apply Bad Paper is a riveting expose;, a moving story of an unlikely friendship, and a gritty narrative of how scrappy entrepreneurs profit from our debts. Jake Halpern introduces us to a former banking executive and a former armed robber who become partners and go in quest of "paper"--the uncollected debts that are sold off by banks for pennies on the dollar. As Halpern shows, the world of consumer debt collection is a wild and unregulated shadowland, where operators may misrepresent a debtor's situation, make illegal threats, and even lay claim to debts that are not theirs to collect in the first place. It is a realm of indelible individuals who possess a swagger and vocabulary that even David Mamet could not invent. Halpern follows his collectors as they intimidate competitors with weapons, manage high-pressure call centers, and scheme new ways to benefit from American's debt-industrial complex. He alsoexplores the history of collection agencies and reveals the human cost of a system that leaves hardworking Americans with little opportunity to retire their debts in a reasonable way. The result is a bravura work of storytelling that is also an importantconsciousness-raiser"--

Jake Halpern is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine, and is the author of previous works of journalism and a young adult novel. His New Yorker story on consumer debt collection is being developed into a dramatic series by Brad Pitt’s production company, Plan B. Jake is a fellow of Morse College at Yale University. His hour-long radio story “Switched at Birth” is one of the NPR program This American Life’s seven most popular shows.