The suits, often over debts as small as $1,000, reveal a largely hidden side of Capital One’s business. The bank has only the fourth-largest credit card portfolio as measured by both numbers of cardholders and balance size, but such a large portion of its cards are held by those with poor credit that it is the country’s largest subprime lender. With those loans comes a high risk of default, and the company is particularly aggressive at recouping losses.
Seems perfectly logical as they are making more risky loans. Poor credit = low limit = small amounts to go after in default. Also seems like a perfectly valid business strategy to recoup their money - assuming their results are better than selling to a collection agent or just writing it off.