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Maxed Out
- Hard Times, Easy Credit, and the Era of Predatory Lenders
- Narrated by: James D. Scurlock
- Length: 4 hrs and 59 mins
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Maxed Out
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Publisher's Summary
Another profitable group can be found in and around our nation's universities, where credit-card issuers are forming "partnerships" with colleges: paying them millions of dollars for access to their students' personal information and essentially setting kids up for financial ruin.
Maxed Out examines an industry that thrives on making people fail, then pursues them relentlessly to death's door. The industry's frontier is called "debt buying" and it's a veritable Wild West in which young men are hoping to make vast fortunes off of the misery and misfortune of others. Their tool is a vast trove of personal information that can be bought for next to nothing - as well as intimidation, guilt, and fear.
By turns hilarious, fascinating, and deeply disturbing, Maxed Out is ultimately one observer's answer to the question, "Why can't we get out of debt?"
What the critics say
"Scurlock deserves credit (no pun intended) for opening more eyes to this dire issue." (Publishers Weekly)
"Can it be fun to read about people's lives being ruined by predatory lenders? Yes, oddly enough, if James Scurlock is doing the writing. He's as fiendishly clever as the banks and credit-card companies he goes after, which is saying a lot. After reading Maxed Out, you're going to want to shed your creditors and reacquaint yourself with the concept of cash." (Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch)