Debt collectors, payday lenders collected over $500 million in federal pandemic relief
Washington Post
By Peter Whoriskey, Joel Jacobs and Aaron Gregg
A Texas firm that describes itself as one of the nation’s largest medical bill collectors was racking up consumer complaints last year.
“For months this company has been reporting inaccurate, unverifiable, erroneous things on my credit report and I am sick of it!!!” states one consumer’s report to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in January 2020.
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The firm, Capio Asset Servicing, came under investigation last year as part of Operation Corrupt Collector, an enforcement sweep of the debt-collection industry by federal and state officials. In a September lawsuit, New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas (D) alleged that the company was seeking to collect debts that were not owed and “causing emotional and physical stress when they threaten and intimidate consumers.”
Yet the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program last year also gave the company a helping hand: It provided $2.4 million in forgivable loans to Capio and an affiliated firm, the Law Office of Mitchell D. Bluhm and Associates, which works with Capio, investigators said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/01/15/debt-collectors-payday-ppp/
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