The mantra “your debt is not my problem” has permitted other bottom-feeding organizations like personal debt collection agencies to revive the once-banned practice of debtor prisons. As people fall behind in their debts and are often unaware of being subject to lawsuits, any arrest whatsoever now can trigger jail time, often for sums as small as five hundred dollars. Hundreds of fly-by-night firms scoured databases to find those falling behind in their mortgages, and hired offshore phone banks to endlessly call and promise false hope, only to swindle them with false stories of help with principal reductions, stealing from them fees they could ill afford. Yet no major media outlet has mustered even a scintilla of outrage for what is, at bottom, cheap illegal ways to harass and torture debtors.

Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis …, loc. 370