Idaho's richest man pledges to fight debt collection firm led by GOP activist

Idaho’s richest man, Frank VanderSloot, and his wife, Belinda, are setting up a fund to defend eastern Idahoans from a debt collection agency with ties to a state representative and prominent libertarian lawyer.

The debt collection agency, Medical Recovery Services, or MRS, of Idaho Falls, has charged debtors excessive supplemental attorneys’ fees, which it says are necessary to discourage people from evading collection, according to a report published this week by East Idaho News, which was funded originally by Frank VanderSloot.

“These guys use tactics to run up the bill,” VanderSloot 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://www.idahostatesman.com/news/business/article229673964.html