The gross amount of consumer debt being sold to debt buyers increased nearly a hundredfold in just over ten years, from $660 million in 1993 to $57 billion in 2004 (See NCLC, Fair Debt Collection §1.5.4.1 6th ed. 2008 and Supp.) By 2005, debt buyer purchases of consumer debt had more than tripled to $128 billion with credit card debt accounting for $88 billion of that total.
New York City has been hit especially hard. New York City Civil court is being known a the "credit card court."