Senator Warren, as Ranking Member of the Senate Banking Committee and one of the strongest voices in Congress against predatory financial practices, you have the platform to take on a system that quietly harms millions of Americans: the debt-buying industry.

Every year, millions of Americans are sued by companies they've never done business with — debt buyers who purchase old, charged-off consumer debt for pennies on the dollar, then sue consumers for the full original amount plus interest and court costs.

We are not advocating for avoidance of paying debt, but this is not debt collection in the traditional sense. The original creditor — a bank, hospital, or credit card company — has already written off the debt as a loss and sold it, often for as little as 1-5 cents per dollar owed, to a third-party debt buyer. That buyer then has every incentive to collect as much of the original balance as possible, even though they have no relationship with the consumer and paid almost nothing to acquire the debt.

The result is a system where:

• Consumers face judgments for amounts wildly disproportionate to what debt buyers actually paid. A $1,771.97 debt bought for approximately $20-50 can result in a court judgment for the full amount plus interest and costs — a windfall of thousands of percent for the buyer.
• Documentation is often weak or incomplete, since debt changes hands multiple times and records don't always transfer cleanly, yet consumers still bear the burden of disputing debts they may not even recognize.
• Consumers without legal representation are especially vulnerable, often not understanding that debt buyers routinely settle for a smaller percentage f the judgment amount, or that they have negotiating leverage most people don't know to use.
• If the consumer cannot pay after the judgment, these debt buyers can and will garnish wages or garnish funds straight from bank accounts with no warning, often creating a cascading effect that could cause people to lose their homes or automobiles when they suddenly don't have funds they were relying on.

We are asking Senator Warren to use her position on the Senate Banking Committee to:

• Introduce or co-sponsor legislation requiring debt buyers to disclose purchase price when suing a consumer or offering a settlement, so consumers and courts can evaluate the fairness of the amount sought.
• Push for caps on recoverable amounts relative to purchase price, so judgments and settlements are tied to a reasonable multiple of what the debt buyer actually paid, rather than the original creditor's claimed balance.
• Advocate for stronger documentation standards, requiring debt buyers to produce a complete chain of title and original account documentation before a court can enter judgment, not just an affidavit of ownership.
• Launch an oversight inquiry into debt-buying practices, using her committee position to investigate how widespread this profit gap is and shine a public spotlight on it, the way she has on other predatory financial practices.

Debt buying is a legal business, but the current system allows it to function without meaningful transparency or proportionality. Senator Warren, we're asking you to bring the same scrutiny to debt buyers that you've brought to banks, credit reporting agencies, and other financial institutions that have profited at consumers' expense.

Sign this petition to ask Senator Warren to take on predatory debt-buying practices.