Hey readers, I’m Katie Herchenroeder, a former editorial fellow here at Mother Jones and a journalist who covers reproductive health care access, gender inequity, and violence against women.
Today, I’m writing to you about my latest story, up this week on Mother Jones, about what happens when an abuser buries someone in debt as a form of domestic violence. In this case, I also track what happens when victims didn’t even know that debt existed until they got a call from collections asking them to pay up.
Scores of women across the country are victims of what’s called coerced debt—and it's ridiculously hard to crack down on.
I started this reporting on coerced debt back when I was still at Mother Jones and, over the past year, I’ve spent countless hours learning how easy it is to take out credit in someone else’s name and what little recourse exists for survivors once they find out they’re tens of thousands in the hole.
In the story, you’ll meet Sarah Ortiz, a mother of three who has spent years trying to prove that she was left in the dark about most of the $45,926 of debt in her name. Her former partner, Sarah told me, used personal information like her Social Security number to open up credit cards and other lines of credit in her name. This fight has played out in the courts, on the phone with financial institutions, and in everyday moments like when she struggled to figure out how she could get approved for a car purchase with her now-tanked credit score.
Over several interviews, Sarah detailed being haunted by debt previously unbeknownst to her, brought on throughout a marriage she has been trying to leave—claims confirmed by her lawyer and a family member, in addition to court documents, police records, emails, and messages sent through the co-parenting application OurFamilyWizard that were reviewed by Mother Jones.
It’s been a hard battle. “It's his word versus mine,” she told me, “and my name is on the document.”
I hope you'll give the story a read.
—Katie Herchenroeder
