Idaho billionaire announces another $500K to fight debt collection firm led by GOP activist

Idaho’s richest man, Frank VanderSloot, and his wife, Belinda, announced on Tuesday they would double their original donation of $500,000 to defend eastern Idahoans from a debt collection agency with ties to a state representative and prominent libertarian lawyer.

In April, VanderSloot created the legal defense fund, called Idaho Medical Debt, to fight on behalf of clients of the debt collection agency Medical Recovery Services, or MRS, of Idaho Falls. The firm charges debtors excessive supplemental attorneys’ fees, which it has said are necessary to discourage people from evading collection, according to a report published by East Idaho News, a publication founded by Frank VanderSloot.

“These guys use tactics to run up the bill,” VanderSloot previously told the Idaho Statesman in a phone interview.

The faces of Medical Recovery Services are prominent figures in the Idaho Republican Party’s libertarian wing: Rep. Bryan Zollinger, an Idaho Falls Republican, and Bryan Smith, a lawyer who has run for office and who argued in the Idaho Supreme Court against Medicaid expansion on behalf of the Idaho Freedom Foundation.

Read more: https://magicvalley.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/idaho-billionaire-announces-another-k-to-fight-debt-collection-firm/article_d2633743-079f-530f-ac54-584ac4ab24af.html