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Corporate debt collectors have been using small claims courts to pursue low sums

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

Small claims courts are supposed to be the so-called people's courts, with informal procedures that make it easy to bring your claim. But Jenifer McKim from our partner station GBH News reports that Massachusetts courts are flooded with corporate debt collectors that are pursuing low-income people, and it's a problem nationwide.

JENIFER MCKIM, BYLINE: I'm standing outside a courthouse north of Boston with Cohlette Carlino, a single mother fuming about what happened to her on her court day.

COHLETTE CARLINO: I'm in the negative at the end of the month. Like, I live check to check. I do not get help. I have my three kids.

MCKIM: Carlino is being sued over a credit card debt of about a thousand dollars in charges and fees she says were racked up by her ex-husband. She sobbed inside as she explained to an attorney for the debt collector that she couldn't afford to pay it back.

CARLINO: I still have to figure out how to make ends meet. And you want me to rob Peter to pay Paul to pay you, and you want me to - what? - forfeit my kids' medication. You want me to forfeit their transportation to their program.

MCKIM: Small claims and other civil courts across the country are inundated by cases like Carlino's - big companies suing low-income people over relatively small amounts of money. A new report filed by the Massachusetts Trial Court shows companies filed more than 92,000 consumer debt cases last year. Nearly half of them came from three firms that buy old debts from credit card companies at a steep discount. Consumer advocates say these eye-opening numbers provide much-needed, tangible evidence of a nationwide problem they are attempting to better understand and to fix.

ERIKA RICKARD: We've tried to do that in other states as well, and we consistently see that debt collection lawsuits are the most common type of civil court case in the country.

MCKIM: That's Erika Rickard, who directs the courts and communities project at the Pew Charitable Trusts. She's looked at cases in small claims and general civil courts across the country. She says these suits can have a long-term impact on people's finances, affecting housing and quality of life.

RICKARD: What we see is not only this high number of debt collection lawsuits around the country, but we also see very consistent things in what happens in them, which is largely, people do not participate in the case, and they experience a judgment against them that comes with court-enforced debt collection. So a really high percentage of these cases end in somebody's paychecks or bank account being garnished.

MCKIM: A spokesman for Midland Credit Management, who sued Carlino, declined to give a recorded interview. In an email, Faryar Borhani said, filing suit is a last resort. Midland tries to work with debtors and suspends collections for a variety of reasons, he says, including job loss. He argues debt collectors are needed to assure accountability and help debtors improve their credit. Midland and its partner companies make up one of the largest such firms in the country. They also have faced legal complaints from regulators in Massachusetts and D.C. for violating fair debt collection laws.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: OK, folks. So thank you all for your patience as we went through the first call of the list.

MCKIM: During another court hearing in Boston last spring, legal aid attorney Kristen Bor-Zale of Greater Boston Legal Services said when defendants in collection cases show up in court and are represented by attorneys, they usually win.

KRISTEN BOR-ZALE: People don't realize that they have legal rights. They don't realize, like, who the debt collector is and the relationship with the original creditor and that there's an opportunity for them to still show up, explain their story and win even if they may have owed a debt to this original creditor.

MCKIM: But the recent report found the vast majority of defendants facing consumer debt suits lacked an attorney. About half of defendants lost their cases because they didn't show up at all, sometimes confused by who was suing them or because they didn't get notice advocates say. Bor-Zale works with one of the few programs in the state that provide volunteer lawyers to educate consumers.

BOR-ZALE: It feels like, you know, we're sticking our finger in a dam of just - there really needs to be a systemic look at the debt collection industry and the small claims legal framework for how it's handled.

MCKIM: In court, Carlino learned from a clerk that she didn't immediately have to pay the debt because of her low income, but it will hang over her head for years. Carlino said she only learned later that she could have fought to dismiss the suit altogether. For NPR News, I'm Jenifer McKim in Boston.

(SOUNDBITE OF KAYTRANADA'S "WEIGHT OFF (FEAT. BADBADNOTGOOD)") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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JENIFER MCKIM