Debt collector refuses to pay judgment

Debt collectors rank among the most conniving corporations, as they make reams of harassing phone calls to families, demanding payment of debts they usually don't even owe. While you or I could go to the state pen for buying too much Sudafed, debt collectors almost always go unpunished for their lawbreaking.

Now a woman in Wheeling, West Virginia, has won a judgment of over $10,000,000 against an abusive debt collector - the largest sum ever levied against such a firm. But the debt collector has so far failed to pay a penny.

This story of debt collector thuggery began a couple years back when Reliant Financial Associates called the woman and threatened to seize her house unless she paid a debt she didn't owe. The woman then sent RFA an official cease-and-desist letter, which RFA signed.

Less than a half-hour after signing the letter, RFA began making hang-up calls to her home, and made it appear on her caller ID as if the calls were coming from her local sheriff's department. After several days of this illegal harassment, an RFA representative called the woman (again posing as the sheriff's department) and threatened to gang-rape her.

During the resulting lawsuit against RFA, RFA's lawyer arrogantly failed to even show up in court. The case yielded a multimillion-dollar verdict against RFA.

Then it turned out RFA was just a phony name used by a firm titled Global AG, LLC. RFA was in effect one of many Global AG collection companies. How's that for deception?

The defendant has paid none of the judgment so far.

If the Old West had modern telephony, debt collectors who threatened rape would have found themselves dancing in the crisp desert air as the gallows were sprung. As long as most states have capital punishment, why don't we pass laws to impose a corporate death penalty? Under this law, if a company threatens to commit rape to collect a debt, the firm must be shut down. End of story.