According to a whistleblower lawsuit filed recently, J.P. Morgan Chase’s credit card services division sold nearly $200 million worth of supposed credit card judgments to collection agents. Each judgment was represented by Chase to be an enforceable court order against a Chase credit card holder to pay a certain amount of debt owed. But many of the judgments were apparently bogus. Some were not judgments at all and, in some cases, Chase reportedly owed the customer money!
Many others were missing proofs of judgment or other essential information and almost 25 percent misstated how much the credit card customer owed, according to the whistleblower. When Chase superiors were made aware of these problems, they allegedly insisted that employees sell the stuff anyway and robo-sign the bogus sales documentation. When one mid-level executive refused to do that, she was fired. Consequently, people who owed nothing were harassed and collection agents were also defrauded. (“J.P. Morgan Chase’s Ugly Family Secrets Revealed,” by Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone).