Sued over Old Debt and Blocked From Suing Back.  Example number the infinity on how business has every advantage over the individual in this country. Ironic that the people who get their panties in a bunch over “big government” vote for the same people who bring you “MASSIVE AND UNSTOPPABLE BUSINESS.”

Between right wing legislators and Federalist Society-spawned judges, arbitration language is universal in consumer contracts and class action suits are harder than ever to certify, so it’s harder now since the 19th century for an individual to fight back.

The result, The New York Times found in an investigation last month, is that banks, car dealers, online retailers, cellphone service providers and scores of other companies have insulated themselves from challenges to illegal or deceptive business practices. Once a class action was dismantled, court and arbitration records showed, few if any of the individual plaintiffs pursued arbitration.

But the absolute slime kings are debt collectors, who use the full power of the system against people who often don’t even know it’s happening.

In the last few years, debt collectors have pushed the parameters of that legal strategy into audacious new territory. Perhaps more than any other industry, debt collectors use the courts while invoking arbitration to deny court access to others. The companies file lawsuits seeking to force borrowers to pay debts. Because borrowers seldom show up to challenge the lawsuits, the collectors win almost every case, transforming debts that banks had given up on into big profits.

Oh my God do these people need to be fucked! I’m not generally a fan of the excesses of the French Revolution, but there are debt collectors for whom, come the revolution, the guillotine would be way too humane.

One of the Polislice progeny was sued for student debts by a truly unscrupulous shit heal debt collector. They hire completely unqualified people to perform service of notice, which they do badly and not up to court requirements. So the upshot was that we got completely lucky to get the notice because it was improperly served. And yet the judge didn’t give two shits about the improper service. Master Polislice was one of the fortunate few who had knowledgeable guidance on the suit, but still had to cough up a chunk of change that he could not afford to pay, because PAY US!!!

[Whereas, a much, much. much larger lender that was owed much, much, much more money just wrote the debt off rather than go after people who can’t really pay or they, you know, would pay.]