The Kansas City Star-
Two years ago, a Kansas City woman learned she was being sued for not paying a credit card debt of $1,130.14.
The debt was not hers, she said. Yet the debt collection firm kept demanding that she pay.
A Kansas City law firm filed a counterclaim on the woman’s behalf, alleging malicious prosecution and violation of a federal fair debt collection act by the national debt collection firm.
This week, a Jackson County jury awarded $251,000 in damages to Maria Guadalupe Mejia Alcantara and assessed $82 million in punitive damages against the debt collection firm, Portfolio Recovery Associates LLC.