We paid off your student loan. No need to say thanks.

We're sure you have a lot of questions.

We are reaching out with an exciting update about the status of your student loans!

You must have been very confused when you received recent correspondence from your original debtor that your student loan had been paid off in full. We know that they know that you know that you didn’t pay it off yourself. Why then, would they tell you that your debt had gone bye-bye? If put in a similar situation we would have done the same thing as you; sat there with our dang mouths shut, considering the case closed.

Maybe you wondered if some kind stranger did you a favor and paid it off on your behalf. Well, that sort of happened. We paid it off on your behalf. Isn’t that cool of us? Aren’t we great dudes? You no longer owe that pesky bank any of your hard-earned money.

Who are we? In short, we’re a small group of friends with a little bit of extra money sitting around that was just burning a hole in our pockets. So we put that money together to help people like you by paying off their student loans. We’re debt purchasers united to kill student loans. We call ourselves the Debt PUnKS. Pretty sweet, eh?

To put it another way — we’re the guys who own you now.

Technically, we don’t own you. That’s still illegal for now, but we’re starting to make cracks. We do own your debt, and that’s just as good. While you no longer have to send that hard-earned money to the bank to pay off your communications degree, you gotta send it to us.

Or — now hear us out — you could do little fun things instead of sending us monthly payments. When we said we had a little bit of extra money lying around we really meant it. We’re fucking loaded, and this money means nothing to us. Also, I don’t know if you know this, but when you buy up debt in bulk you get a great rate from the banks. They had no faith in you ever paying them off. We bought the right to fuck with you forever for pennies on the dollar. So we honestly don’t care if we ever get paid back. We don’t need the money at all.

But we will ruin your life. Starting next month and continuing until, well, let’s face it, forever, your monthly statement will offer you a choice. Pay us your regular, monthly payment until the loan and interest are paid in full (the original amount you borrowed, not the pennies-on-the-dollar amount we paid to acquire it, isn’t finance cool!), or engage in the Debt PUnKS Stunt of the Month for our enjoyment.

What kind of little fun things do we ask from the Debt PUnKS Stunt of the Month? We won’t ruin any future surprises but some of the things we’ve asked in the past of our financial captives have been: posting fake confessions via social media, engaging in a new TikTok dance craze we’ve invented, going to a crowded karaoke bar and singing “Angel” by Sarah McLachlan while crying, full-on ghosting of whoever you are dating at the moment, listing an item for sale online with your naked reflection “accidentally” included in the image, posting credible threats about public figures online, starting a sexual affair with your direct supervisor’s spouse, dognapping, going to your local grocery store and loudly telling on anyone who doesn’t properly scan their stuff at self-checkout, doing a series of “trip-and-spills” at national coffee chains of our choosing, heckling at random funerals, seeing how mad you can get at a gun store without being denied the right to make a purchase, stealing packages from your neighbors and brazenly using the stolen items where they can see you.

So much fun!

You might be asking how any of this is legal. It just is. We own your debt, and we’re giving you a choice. You have complete free will in this to do whatever you want. You don’t have to do any of the stunts. Just like you didn’t need to go to a college you couldn’t afford.

I take it that you’ve figured out by now that when we said we had exciting news about your student debt, we meant that it was exciting for us.