An interesting article caught my eye today, focused on the growing industry of ARM, accounts receivable management – the underbelly of the finance industry that buys debts in bulk from mainstream creditors.

The ARM industry has grown during a time when other businesses are folding all around us. The business of buying bad debt is a lucrative one that has massive growth potential. When debts are written off by mainstream creditors, debt buyers buy them up in bulk for pennies on the dollar. Those debts are then spit back into the pool of collection agencies, who for the most part, will hound a person to death for repayment.

Case in point was a debtor who lit himself on fire because of his woes with a Rent A Center and its collection efforts.  The frustration coupled with the highest unemployment rate we’ve ever seen, is causing debtors to literally lose their mind along with their money.

Debt collection firms have long been a major focus of the FTC for complaints filed per year, and the debt buying business is swelling those numbers. People who owe money, albeit perhaps legitimately, are being hounded nonstop by greedy debt buyers. Calls to jobs, relentless collection letters, judgments, can all prove too much for a person drowning in debt.

Once a debt has been taken out of the original creditors hands, the consumer finds themselves dealing with an entity that has no long term relationship with them, nor could they care less about your personal problems. Trying to stop the collection process by any means other than payment, is fruitless. It’s a pay or prey industry.

According to wsws.org, much of this business borders on illegality, employing a policy of deliberate harassment and abuse. As an industry, it has long garnered the most business practice complaints by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), but the past few years have seen violations skyrocket. “We’re sitting on the largest volume of complaints for any single industry—at more than 100,000 a year,” said Peggy Twohig, associate director of the financial practices division at the FTC.

Debtors are finding it harder to hide, especially in a world of technology and social media. Unless you communicate with absolutely no one and hide in your house, you’re at risk of being found said credit expert Kristi Feathers.

“Collection agencies utilize the best tools and technology to locate debtors and that can include calling neighbors, relatives, digging through old application data, DMV and medical records, and now with sites like Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter, its even easier to pry online.”

Collection agencies and debt buyers aren’t the only ones hounding debtors. Big banks are raising rates in record numbers making it impossible for people to pay their debts back. Ultimately those same debts will end up being sold to the ARM industry.

Debtors have gotten so fed up with being hounded by collection agencies and spit on by big banks, that they’ve taken to the Internet to plead their cases of “rape and pillage” by financial giants.

Debtors Revolt started with one person telling Bank of America where to stick it via YouTube for raising her interest rate for no good reason, and has now become viral with over 440,000 views. Imagine over one million debtors gaining up on the underbelly of the finance world!

Seems this just may be the new medium for debtors to take their strength back in numbers.