News & Articles

Whenever a corporation issues a statement declaring that it is committed to “treating consumers fairly and with respect,” chances are it’s not.
After all, if the outfit was actually doing it, there would be no need for a statement. Indeed, this particular claim came from Encore Capital, one of our country’s largest buyers of bad consumer debt – and it definitely has not been playing nice with the people it browbeats to collect overdue credit card bills, car loans, etc.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman found that Encore, based in San Diego, filed nearly 240,000 lawsuits against debtors in a recent four-year period, using our courts as its private collection arm. Problem is, Encore’s bulk filing of lawsuits are rife with errors, out-of-date payment data, fabricated credit card statements, etc. Tons of them are missing original loan documents, payment histories, and other proof of debt.
Debt predators, however, scoot around this lack of facts by simply having their employees sign affidavits asserting that the level of money owed is accurate. Judges, overwhelmed by the unending flood of lawsuits filed by Encore et al, have accepted those affidavits as true, thus ruling in favor of the corporations. But Schneiderman found that – Surprise! – affidavits were simply being rubber-stamped by company employees, who didn’t have time to check for accuracy. An employee of one large debt-buyer testified that he was having to sign about 2,000 affidavits a day!
This is no minor scam – one in seven adults in the U.S. is under pursuit by debt collectors. It’s hard enough for struggling families to claw their way out from under the economic crash without having lying, cheating, predator corporations twist the court system to pick their pockets and shut off their hope of recovery.
“Debt Buyer Faces Fine In Doubtful Lawsuits,” The New York Times, January 9, 2015.

Corporate crime supported by a whirligig of legal favoritism

This is odd: America’s laws to deter corporate crime actually force victims to help subsidize the criminals.
Follow the bouncing ball here: First, a court orders a corporation to pay punitive damages to a victim of its criminal acts; second, the corporate offender pays up, then merrily subtracts a big chunk of that payment from its income tax, effectively taking money out of our public treasury; third, while the criminal is counting its tax break, the victim is notified that the punitive damage money he or she received from the corporation will be taxed as “regular income;” fourth, that means a big chunk of the victim’s payment effectively goes to replenish the public money the corporate villain subtracted.
Bad enough that corporate-financed lawmakers legalize such encouragement of criminality, but corporate-coddling judges are playing the same disgraceful game by drastically reducing the amounts that juries order corporations to pay. In a Montana case, for example, a jury awarded $240 million in punitive damages to the families of three people, including two teenagers, killed in a car crash. The deaths were blamed on a steering defect that South Korean automaker, Hyundai, was found to have known about and “recklessly” ignored for more than a decade. But a district judge has since supplanted the jury’s ruling with her own. While declaring that Hyundai’s “reprehensibility” certainly warrants a sizeable punishment, she cut the corporation’s punitive payment down to $73 million.
Hello – that’s not punishment to a $79 billion a year car giant, it’s pocket change. Why would Hyundai executives quit putting corporate profits over people’s lives if that’s their “punishment?
With subsidies and wrist-slaps, the corporate criminal whirligig will continue to spin, making a mockery of justice.
“When Company Is Fined, Taxpayers Often Share Bill,” The New York Times, February 4, 2015.
“Hyundai Motor,” www.forbes.com, May 2014.

The House of health-care nincompoops

The GOP led House of Representatives has proudly achieved a historic legislative record.
A record in futility, that is. Also in absurdiosity. In February, for the 56th time, they focused the entire array of brain cells in their 245-member majority on an effort that would directly harm millions of Americans, namely the repeal of Obamacare. Yes, the Nincompoop Caucus has now wasted Congress’ time and credibility by voting not once, not 10 or 20 times, but 56 times to take away even the minimal level of health coverage for previously-uninsured people.
But wait… it’s possible that I misstated that number. It seems that House Speaker John Boehner’s team has been so overcome by its passion for eliminating health care that they lost track of how deeply they’ve disappeared into the woods of right-wing fantasyland. A recount reveals that instead of taking 56 wild potshots at the program, they’ve actually held 67 votes on it.
Meanwhile, the Obamacare program that the Boehner Bunch is working so feverishly to kill (even though it’s modeled directly on programs previously introduced by such Republican stalwarts as Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich), turns out to be working better than anyone – even its proponents – thought it would. And, to the tooth-grinding dismay of the kill-Obamacare crowd, Americans like it! Naysaying congress critters had scoffed from the start that no one would buy into the program, but on the deadline day for this year’s sign-up (which came only two weeks after the House’s 67th vote for repeal) a record number of people joined. That means 11.5 million Americans who had no coverage before Obamacare, now do.
Did I mention that the lawmakers who’re trying so furiously to eliminate coverage for those people, enjoy government-paid coverage for themselves?
“An Ode to Obamacare,” The New York Times, February 12, 2015.
“Congressional Profile,” www.clerk.house.gov, February 2015.