Sentence examples for debt collection program from inspiring English sources

Education Secretary Arne Duncan's debt collection program -- which now ensnares more than 7 million Americans who collectively owe more than $108 billion -- has been criticized for years by consumer advocates and federal auditors for lackluster oversight and disregard for borrowers' complaints.

The debt collection program has been a magnet for criticism.

The Treasury Department is among federal agencies that have been concerned by the Education Department's debt collection program.

In a longer recent pilot project from 2006 to 2009 under the Bush administration, a similar debt collection program that was supposed to raise a $1 billion once again lost money.

The developments come as the Education Department faces increasing pressure from the White House and the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to clean up a tainted debt collection program that has been accused of cheating borrowers, forcing seniors into poverty and allowing debt collectors to violate the law with impunity.

Unlike the debt collection program, which involves the more mundane - if often unsavory - task of collecting debts where the IRS has already determined taxpayer liability, Quinn Emanuel will be involved in what many argue is the more core governmental function of determining whether a firm being audited followed the law, including taking testimony from witnesses.

Private debt collection programs have historically wasted federal resources and violated consumer rights.

If the more than $7 million in operating costs were put into the I.R.S.'s automated debt collection system — an existing program — the agency could bring in at least $91.8 million in net revenues, and possibly as much as $145 million — a much bigger return.

To that end, the officials said yesterday, they have taken the unusual step for a court system of hiring a private debt collection company to conduct a pilot program in six state and local courts in New York City, Nassau and Suffolk Counties and Rochester.

I say: "I'm calling from State Collection Service, debt collection, attempting to collect debt.

But on the watch of local leaders, the program has morphed into a predatory system of debt collection for well-financed, out-of-town companies that turned $500 delinquencies into $5,000 debts — then foreclosed on homes when families couldn't pay.