Credit Card Debt and Robosigning

Today's New York Times has a front page story on questionable practices in the debt collection industry - collection of credit card debts to be precise - which is big business in America.  The Times reports that the same type of sloppy paperwork and loose practices that caused such a furor with mortgage foreclosures not too long ago now infect many collection lawsuits. 

I'm not aware of any instances of inflated damage estimates or testimony by folks without any knowledge of the facts in cases in Massachusetts, but that doesn't mean that such practices don't exist.  On the contrary, these types of lawsuits are often won be default when the defendant doesn't even contest the claim which means that the accuracy and validity of these claims is rarely tested in more than a cursory manner. 

While I can't talk specifically about the quality of the claims presented, I can provide some numbers on the volume of Executions recorded here at Middlesex North.  Almost all are claims brought by credit card companies (Citibank, Discover, Capital One) or by second-generation debt creation outfits (Advantage Assets, Equable Ascent Financial):

January - 38
February - 48
March - 79
April - 28
May - 42
June - 75
July - 46
August (to 8/13) - 44