Midland Credit Management, Inc. v. Betty McCollum

Let’s get one thing straight: Betty McCollum, a woman in rural Oklahoma, is being sued for $803.77 — less than the cost of a decent used refrigerator — over a credit card she opened at a store that sells bedazzled jeans and throw pillows. That’s right. This isn’t a murder mystery. It’s not a custody battle. It’s not even a neighbor feud over a runaway goat. No, this is peak American capitalism in action: a debt collection lawsuit for a TJX Rewards credit card, the kind you sign up for at checkout while being guilted by a cashier who says, “You’ll save 10% today!” And now, nearly a decade later, the bill has changed hands so many times it’s like a cursed Hot Potato, and it’s landed in the lap of Midland Credit Management, Inc., a company whose entire business model is buying up forgotten debts and suing people for them. Welcome to the wild, wild west of consumer debt — population: your credit score.

So who are these players in this high-stakes drama of late fees and affidavits? On one side, we’ve got Betty McCollum — a private individual, likely just trying to live her life in Alfalfa County, Oklahoma (yes, that’s a real place, and no, it’s not overrun with alfalfa). She’s not a defendant in a criminal case. She didn’t steal anything. She didn’t run a Ponzi scheme. She opened a credit card at a store — probably T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, or HomeGoods — back in September 2017, racked up some charges, made payments for a while, and then, at some point, stopped. The last payment she made was in April 2023. By December of that year, the original lender, Synchrony Bank, had “charged off” the account — which is a fancy way of saying, “We’ve given up on collecting this ourselves.” But here’s where it gets juicy: instead of vanishing into the void of unpaid retail debt, Betty’s $803.77 was sold — probably for pennies on the dollar — to Midland Credit Management, Inc., a debt buyer based in California that specializes in exactly this kind of thing. Midland didn’t lend her the money. They didn’t know her. They just bought the right to sue her for it. And now they’re represented by a law firm — Love, Beal & Nixon, P.C. — whose name sounds like a 1970s detective duo, but in reality, they’re a well-oiled machine for filing hundreds of these cases a year across Oklahoma and beyond.

So what happened? Well, the filing is sparse on drama — no shocking betrayals, no secret recordings, no surprise inheritances. Just cold, hard numbers. Betty opened the card in 2017. She used it. She paid it for a while. Then she didn’t. The account went delinquent. Synchrony Bank charged it off in December 2023. A year later, in January 2024, Midland Credit Management became the new owner of her debt — the “successor in interest,” as the legalese puts it. Then, in January 2026 — yes, that’s two years after the charge-off — they filed a lawsuit. The only real evidence? An affidavit from a woman named RaeJeanna Rivera, a “Legal Specialist” in St. Cloud, Minnesota, who swears under penalty of perjury that Midland owns the debt and that the balance is $803.77. She’s never met Betty. She’s never seen her credit application. She’s just looked at the digital records Midland inherited when they bought the debt. And that, apparently, is enough to drag someone into court.

Now, why are they in court? Because Midland wants a judgment — a formal court order saying, “Yes, Betty McCollum owes this money.” That’s the whole point of a debt collection lawsuit. It’s not about negotiation. It’s not about payment plans. It’s about getting the power of the state behind a private company so they can potentially garnish wages, freeze bank accounts, or just slap a lien on Betty’s record. The legal claim is straightforward: breach of contract. When Betty opened the card, she agreed to pay it back. She didn’t. So now, they say, she owes. The court filing is so boilerplate it could be generated by a robot — and honestly, at this volume, it probably is. The same law firm, Love, Beal & Nixon, files dozens of these a week. They’ve got templates. They’ve got affidavits on file. They’ve got a notary in Minnesota ready to stamp and swear at the push of a button.

And what do they want? $803.77. Let that sink in. That’s not $80,000. Not $8,000. Eight hundred three dollars and seventy-seven cents. For context, that’s about four months of Netflix, or one round-trip flight to Florida if you book early. It’s less than the deductible on most car insurance policies. And yet, someone — a whole team of lawyers, a notary, a legal specialist in Minnesota — has devoted time, ink, and court resources to collect it. Midland isn’t asking for punitive damages. They’re not demanding Betty attend financial counseling. They’re not even asking for emotional distress (though we might be). They just want the money. Plus interest. Plus court costs. But mostly? The $803.77.

Now, here’s our take: the most absurd part of this isn’t that someone owes money. It’s not even that they’re being sued. It’s that the entire American debt collection system runs like a shadowy vending machine: you put in bad debt, out comes lawsuits. Midland didn’t lend Betty a dime. They bought her defaulted account for maybe $200, tops. Now they’re suing for over four times that amount — and if they win, they could collect every penny. And if Betty doesn’t show up to court? Which, let’s be real, is likely — because who takes a day off work to defend an $800 debt in rural Oklahoma? — then Midland gets a default judgment. Game over. Her credit tanks. Her bank account could be frozen. All because she once bought a rug she didn’t need at Marshalls in 2017.

We’re not saying people shouldn’t pay their debts. But come on. This isn’t justice. This is debt harvesting. This is the legal system being used as a collection agency’s ATM. And the saddest part? Betty McCollum probably doesn’t even remember this card. She might not even know she’s being sued — these notices get lost, ignored, tossed with the junk mail. And meanwhile, Midland Credit Management files another petition, another affidavit, another day, another dollar. We’re rooting for accountability — not for Betty to get a free pass, but for the system to stop treating people like spreadsheet entries. Because at this rate, the next case we cover might just be someone getting sued for $5.99 over an expired Blockbuster late fee. And honestly? We wouldn’t even be surprised.