As the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Americans got protection from evictions, foreclosures and student debt. But debt collectors have continued to siphon off their share of paychecks from those who still have jobs.

Since 2018, Capital One has been a looming presence in Julio Lugo’s life, ever since the company sued him, as it did 29,000 other New Yorkers that year, over an unpaid credit card. But when the coronavirus hit the city this March, it wasn’t on his mind.
At Mount Sinai in Manhattan, where he works, he’d been drafted into the hospital’s frenzied effort against the virus. He normally gathered patient information at the front desk of a radiology clinic in orderly shifts, 9…
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