On Sunday’s episode of his show, ‘Last Week Tonight, ‘ Oliver detailed the lack of oversight and basic standards of verification in the debt-collection industry.
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“Debt buying is a grimy business and it badly needs more oversight”, he said when he started the segment. He explained to his viewers that he undertook the surprisingly easy task of starting a debt buying company, Central Asset Recovery Professional, Inc. Oliver said it was “disturbingly easy” to create the company.
The host explained that his show spent $50 to launch a debt collection agency online in MS, with Oliver as the head of it.
Instead of hounding the individuals and chasing down the debts, CARP forgave them. He acquired $15 million worth of unpaid medical bills for only $60,000, and immediately forgave the debts.
JOHN Oliver is the new Oprah Winfrey. While Oliver financially paid off the debt, RIP Medical Debt did the paperwork involved in the forgiveness process and contacted the individual debtors with the good news.
The segment also showed footage of panelists at a debt-buying trade conference saying that most consumers didn’t understand disclaimers on their debt notices, which affords them some legal rights.
What do you think of John Oliver’s Robin Hood act? This giveaway surpasses Oprah’s big auto giveaway in 2004 where she gave the members of her audience each a brand new vehicle for a value of almost $8 million. “But many people can find themselves in debt through no direct fault of their own”.
That means he literally just put together the single biggest giveaway in the history of television – about $7 million more than what Oprah Winfrey gave away when she infamously decided everybody in her daytime talk show audience was going to go home with a new auto!
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How did Oliver go about it purchasing and then forgiving this debt? He was able to buy $15M in debt for less than $60K. As Oliver himself points out repeatedly in this video, that’s several million dollars more than Oprah Winfrey’s infamous vehicle giveaway from many years ago.
