CAVALRY SPV I, LLC, AS ASSIGNEE OF CITIBANK, N.A. v. SHERI A MALEKI

Let’s get this out of the way upfront: someone in rural Oklahoma is being sued for $1,198.01—yes, the one cent is included—because, allegedly, she didn’t pay her credit card bill. Not a million-dollar fraud scheme. Not a high-stakes embezzlement ring. Just over a thousand bucks, plus interest, plus fees, plus the full weight of the American civil justice system, all descending upon a woman in Eucha, Oklahoma—a town so small it makes your GPS nervous. This isn’t Law & Order: SVU. This is Law & Order: Minimum Payment Due.

So who are we talking about here? On one side, we’ve got Sheri A. Maleki, resident of Eucha (population: “you probably haven’t heard of it”), a quiet little dot on the map near the Arkansas border where the deer outnumber the people and the nearest Starbucks is a 90-minute drive. We don’t know much about Sheri—no criminal record, no history of lawsuits, no viral TikToks—just that at some point, she had a credit card. Not unusual. Most adults in America have at least one, unless they’re a survivalist who trades in bottled water and bullet casings. This particular card was issued by Citibank in partnership with The Home Depot—so we’re talking about that sweet, sweet “save 10% today when you open a card” energy. You know the drill: you’re in the lumber aisle, you need a drill, and suddenly a cashier is asking if you want to save $3.78 on your purchase in exchange for your financial future.

On the other side of this legal showdown? CAVALRY SPV I, LLC. Sounds like a private military contractor. Or maybe a hedge fund that specializes in medieval reenactments. But no—Cavalry is a debt buyer. That’s right: they didn’t issue the card. They didn’t lend Sheri the money. They didn’t even know her name until they bought her debt for pennies on the dollar at some shadowy financial auction where spreadsheets are the only entertainment. These companies purchase bundles of delinquent accounts—thousands at a time—like bulk Halloween candy after November 2nd. Then they turn around and sue people to collect the full amount. It’s the financial equivalent of buying a used car for $500, then demanding $10,000 from the last owner because the cup holder is broken.

According to the filing—short, sweet, and about as emotionally rich as a spreadsheet—Sheri “promised to pay” but “failed to do so.” That’s the whole story. There’s no mention of hardship, no explanation for non-payment, no dramatic backstory about medical bills or job loss or a rogue raccoon eating the checkbook. Just: she owed money. She didn’t pay. Now someone wants it back. The debt? $1,198.01. That’s not chump change, sure—especially if you’re living paycheck to paycheck in rural Oklahoma—but it’s also not life-altering wealth. We’re talking about maybe two months’ worth of groceries. Or one unexpected car repair. Or, if you’re really living large, a single night at a non-haunted hotel in Branson.

But here’s where it gets juicy. The plaintiff isn’t Citibank. It’s not even Home Depot, which might at least have the decency to send you a mildly passive-aggressive reminder email with a picture of a power washer. No, it’s Cavalry SPV I, LLC—an entity so aggressively generic it sounds like a tax shelter invented during a Zoom call. And they’re being represented by Jenkins & Young, P.C., a Texas-based law firm that specializes in exactly this kind of debt collection work. Their attorney, Dan G. Young (Oklahoma Bar No. 20915, because nothing says “trust me” like a bar number), has filed this petition in Delaware County District Court, which, despite the name, is in Oklahoma, not the East Coast state full of corporate lawyers and tax loopholes. This is small-town justice, where the judge probably knows half the people in the courtroom by name and the other half by reputation.

Now, let’s break down what’s actually happening here, legally speaking. The claim? “Petition on Account and Money Lent.” Fancy term, simple idea: “You borrowed money. You agreed to pay it back. You didn’t. Now we’re asking the court to make you pay.” No fraud. No breach of contract drama. No he said/she said. Just a cold, hard assertion: the debt exists, it was assigned to us, and we want our money. The court doesn’t need to decide if Sheri should have bought whatever she bought with that Home Depot card—maybe it was a lawnmower, maybe it was a lifetime supply of caulk. Doesn’t matter. The question is whether she agreed to pay, and whether she didn’t.

And what does Cavalry want? $1,198.01. Plus interest. Plus court costs. Plus “reasonable attorney’s fees.” That last one’s a kicker—so if Sheri loses, she might end up paying more than the original debt just to cover the cost of being sued. It’s like when you’re late on a library book and they hit you with a $25 fine for a $12 book. Only here, the book is a cordless drill, and the library is a billion-dollar debt collection machine.

Is $1,198.01 a lot? Depends on who you ask. If you’re a private equity firm buying debt portfolios for sport, it’s a rounding error. If you’re a single parent in Eucha trying to keep the heat on in winter, it’s a mountain. But here’s the real absurdity: the sheer scale of this legal machinery for such a small sum. We’ve got attorneys filing motions, courts scheduling hearings, process servers knocking on doors—all to recover the cost of a mid-range smartphone. There’s no jury demand, so this won’t be a dramatic courtroom showdown with closing arguments and tearful testimony. It’ll probably end with a default judgment if Sheri doesn’t show up, or a quiet settlement if she calls the law firm and offers to pay $600 to make it go away.

And yet, here we are, telling this story like it’s The People v. O.J. Simpson. Why? Because it’s a perfect snapshot of how debt collection works in America: impersonal, automated, and relentless. Sheri didn’t default on a mortgage. She didn’t max out ten credit cards and vanish to Belize. She just didn’t pay a relatively small balance on a store card—maybe because she forgot, maybe because she couldn’t, maybe because she disputed the charges and no one listened. And now her name is on a docket in Delaware County, Oklahoma, attached to a lawsuit filed by a company with “SPV” in its name—Special Purpose Vehicle, because nothing says “I care about your financial well-being” like a corporate shell created solely to sue people.

Our take? We’re not rooting for the debt buyer. We’re not even really rooting for Sheri—though we do wish her well, and hope she’s not getting woken up by collection calls at 6 a.m. We’re rooting for the system to make sense. For a world where $1,198.01 doesn’t trigger a lawsuit. Where people aren’t dragged into court over sums that could be resolved with a phone call or a payment plan. Where the legal system isn’t used as a collection agency with gavels.

But until that world exists, we’ll be here—covering the petty, the bizarre, and the infuriating, one $1,198.01 lawsuit at a time. Because in the grand theater of civil court, sometimes the most dramatic stories aren’t about murder, betrayal, or scandal. Sometimes, they’re about a Home Depot credit card, a missed payment, and the relentless march of late fees.