Once-Ignored Consumer Debts Are Focus of Booming Industry

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http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...dress=103x81285


Once-Ignored Consumer Debts Are Focus of Booming Industry

Asset Acceptance, a New Type Of Collector, Hits Paydirt Suing for Modest Sums

Some Fight Back -- and Win

By SUEIN HWANG
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
October 25, 2004; Page A1


In 1996, when Heather Scott's marriage split up, she defaulted on $3,000 she owed on her Discover credit card. "It was either that or feed my kids," the Phoenix woman says. Until recently, she probably could have walked away from her credit-card debt with little more than a damaged credit report. But an increasingly aggressive debt-collection industry is going after people, like Ms. Scott, who used to fly below the radar. For six years, she heard nothing about her Discover debt. Then, in 2002, she was sued in small-claims court in Phoenix. A company called Asset Acceptance Capital Corp. had bought her Discover debt and wanted to collect. The 35-year-old single mother of two, who says she couldn't afford a lawyer, didn't show up in court. Asset won a default judgment of about $9,500, including more than $2,000 for the company's legal fees. For the past year, the company has been taking about $100 out of the $625 paycheck she receives every two weeks as an administrative worker for the state of Arizona.



But there is more to the story. According to some lawyers and advocates for consumers, Asset uses the relaxed rules of small-claims and municipal courts to file suits that contain little documentation of the debts it seeks to collect. These courts typically allow for quick judgments when legally unsophisticated defendants fail to contest the suits, the critics say. Once it obtains judgments, Asset can use the full weight of the legal system to enforce its victories, primarily by seizing assets or garnishing wages. When individuals fight back against the company in court, consumer lawyers and advocates say, Asset often drops its suits, not wishing to engage in expensive legal skirmishing. The upshot is that poorer and less sophisticated debtors are more likely to face a judgment for Asset, these lawyers and advocates say.



What Asset has discovered -- and what other debt collectors are realizing -- is the power of small-claims and municipal courts. Set up to help individuals quickly settle minor disputes, these courts generally offer cheaper filing fees and often require plaintiffs to gather less evidence to get suits started. These courts also sometimes impose less onerous requirements for giving defendants notice that they are being sued. And judges overseeing small claims typically plow through dozens of cases a day -- far more than conventional judges -- making it more likely that a plaintiff will walk away with a quick default judgment.


While Asset appears to be following the letter of the law, its practices concern some legal experts, who say small-claims court was never intended for this kind of litigation. "The consequences of small-claims court is the same as any other court, and now has the full panoply of remedies to collect," says Richard Alderman, director of the Center of Consumer Law at the University of Houston Law Center. Because conventional courts typically have more safeguards for defendants, he adds, debt-collecting companies should be forced to file their suits there, "before we start garnishing wages, taking away property, and doing things on a wholesale manufactured basis."



Some former debtors and lawyers who have skirmished with Asset say Ms. Scott may not have had to pay the company anything if she had gone to court and contested its claims... if a debtor can plausibly argue in court that the amount Asset is seeking may be incorrect, a judge may dismiss the case for lack of evidence, some consumer attorneys say. "They usually don't have the documentation," says Glen Chulsky, an attorney in Dover, N.J., who now represents individuals but previously did work for debt-collection firms.


Write to Suein Hwang at suein.hwang@wsj.com


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