Attorney General takes on robo-signers

The Minnesota Attorney General's Office filed a complaint Thursday in Hennepin County District Court against the debt buying company Midland Funding LLC. The lawsuit alleges that the St. Cloud company created false and unreliable mass-produced, "robo-signed" affidavits as supposed "proof" of consumer debts in lawsuits against individual citizens.

Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson was allowed to proceed with the lawsuit after Ohio Federal District Court Judge David Katz issued an order saying that a tentative class action settlement in that jurisdiction did not prevent Minnesota's legal action.

Swanson's lawsuit alleges that "Midland aggressively filed thousands of lawsuits against individual citizens for collection of old, purchased debt, often supporting those lawsuits with "robo-signed" affidavits generated at its St. Cloud Offices."

Midland Funding is a subsidiary of Encore Capital Group Inc. a publicly traded company based in San Diego. Encore Capital Group, Inc. purchases and manages portfolios that include unsecured, charged-off domestic consumer credit cards, auto loan deficiency, and telecom receivables purchased from national financial institutions, major retail credit corporations, telecom companies, and resellers.