Credit card issuer Capital One Bank and four other companies were sued by West Virginia Attorney General Darrell McGraw for unfair and deceptive practices and bad business conduct. The complaint was filed this week in West Virginia’s Circuit Court and it claims that Capital One hooked consumers into repayment plans by mailing out solicitations disguised as new credit offers.

Capital One offered to give consumers one dollar of new credit if they agreed to transfer the whole balance of a charged off account to the new credit card. This meant that Capital One could re-age debts to get around the statute of limitations, which would start anew.

According to the suit, Capital One issued cards with limits as low as 200 dollars for low-income consumers with poor credit histories. The cards carried membership fees of up to 59 dollars per year. Typically, the annual fees were billed on the consumer’s second monthly statement, leaving the consumer with just 141 dollars of credit when they thought they had 200 dollars. Then, if the consumer mistakenly exceeded the limit, they could face over the limit fees of up to 29 dollars.

In the past few months, McGraw’s office has targeted debt collection agencies in part of an effort to protect West Virginia’s debtors. In November his office took two payday lending firms and four collection agencies to court.

As members of the debt collection industry, oftentimes we may scratch our heads and wonder why, in a suffering economy where debt is running rampant, we cannot retrieve the money that consumers owe. Analysts claim that with unemployment rates running so high, it is virtually impossible for consumers to repay their debts. But bad business practices are not going to help the situation either. It may be a knee jerk reaction to try to con consumers out of money, but it is just that. A knee jerk reaction.

Mallory Megan works for a debt collection company. She also composes pieces on bankruptcy, business, finance, and debt collection.