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Originally Posted by jhoward124
First I would like to commend you for doing this. I dont know if I should be asking you or an attorney this question but I figured I would start with you first. A long time friend of mine has an outstanding online gambling debt with pay-pro, an online payment program based in Central America, of over $4200 and is in the clink for about 6 months. I read a question on this forum of the same sort however not under these same conditions. 2 questions, first what will happen if he neglects to pay the debt altogether since it out of the US and online gambling debts may not likely be enforced in the states. And second since it will be 6 months before he will be able to pay, what will likely happen between now and then. Thanks.
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Alright, take everything I say with a grain of salt as I am not very well versed in the specifics of international debt, or specifically gambling debt either...
From my understanding, your friends debt is not going to be considered an "online gambling debt." If he owed money directly to the online casino, it likely would be, but I think pay-pro is just a service that allows one to transfer money to the casino. If that is the case, I'd imagine it will likely follow the same course as all debts that go delinquent in the states - they go to collections.
As it will be 6 months before he pays, It's likely that his debt will be sold to a collection company long before he gets out. Terribly bad for his credit, but he'll have a much better chance of negotiating the debt down to a lesser amount. Depending on how his credit is at the time, if it is really, really terrible, he might just want to not pay it for a while, as the longer you wait to pay a collection agency the more they are typically willing to negotiate.
Normally I wouldn't recommend keeping a collection out there, but I'm going to imagine that since he won't be able to pay that because he's locked up for six months, his other debts won't get paid either - effectively ruining his credit. If that's the case, bankruptcy would be an option I would seriously consider, depending on how bad his situation is.
Good luck - hope this helped!