"Susan Macharia, a 39 year old administrative worker in Buena Park, California, received a nasty shock when she was targeted by a credit card collection service. They told her she had to pay off a $10,000 credit card debt allegedly run up in 2003, and that her wages would be garnished if she did not. While it would normally be ridiculously beyond the statute of limitations for an agency to be able to collect a debt 13 years old, also against the law, the company had apparently hunted down a copy of a 2006 default judgment that was entered into the record against her when she failed to respond to a lawsuit for the collection.

The unfortunate punchline to all this? Ms. Macharia did not have a credit card in 2003. She only opened her first credit card account in 2013. She could not remember ever being served with a lawsuit at any point. This isn’t surprising since she was living in Atlanta when the lawsuit was allegedly served against her in California. Meanwhile, the debt collector actually began garnishing $800 a month from her wages.

Ms. Macharia eventually defeated what turned out to be a completely fraudulent debt with the help of The Public Law Center, which handles pro bono legal cases in Santa Ana California. They contacted the alleged creditors regarding errors found in the file of Ms. Macharia and the debt was cancelled and the garnished money promised to be returned. According to Leigh E. Ferrin, who is in charge of the group’s consumer law unit, most collection firms “don’t want to litigate, because they know the documentation isn’t sufficient.” There is a name that covers completely false debt service being levied on someone in this nature. It’s called “sewer service.”"

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