Minnesota AG Suing Encore Capital Group

Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson announced Monday that she is preparing to file a lawsuit against Midland Funding LLC, a subsidiary of publicly traded debt buyer Encore Capital Group (Nasdaq: ECPG).

Swanson announced the suit in a press release. Encore officials have not been reached for confirmation.

Swanson is targeting Midland’s use of the Minnesota court system to collect debts from consumers. She claims that Midland used “robo-signed” affidavits as proof that consumers owed debts they were being sued over.  Swanson claims that the company used these documents — in some cases sloppy, and in some fraudulent — “in order to obtain judgments against or extract payments from mostly unrepresented citizens, some of whom had no knowledge of any alleged debt.”

Midland has an office in St. Cloud, Minn.

Swanson noted that the company has “filed over 15,000 lawsuits against citizens in Minnesota courts since 2008.”

More on this story when it becomes available.