She sat across from me at my desk in Minneapolis, holding a manila folder thick with letters from collection agencies. A single mother. A nurse. Someone who had done everything right. paid her bills on time, worked overtime shifts, saved what she could. And someone had stolen her identity.
Her credit was destroyed. Her mortgage application was denied. The credit bureaus told her it was her problem to fix. The banks told her to call the bureaus. Nobody would help her.
We took her case. We fought the bureaus, traced the fraud, documented every false account, and rebuilt her credit record from the ground up. It took months. She got her mortgage. She bought her home.
That case was almost fifteen years ago. I still remember her name. And she's not unique. I've handled thousands of cases just like hers.
This Is What I Do
For nearly twenty years, Madgett Law has represented Minnesotans against the institutions that are supposed to serve them. Credit bureaus that refuse to correct errors. Lenders who use deceptive practices. Debt collectors who harass and mislead. Companies that profit from consumers' confusion and vulnerability.
I didn't come to consumer protection through politics. I came to it through practice. through sitting across the desk from real people whose lives have been upended by fraud, negligence, and institutional indifference.
That's the experience I'll bring to the Attorney General's office. Not talking points about consumer protection. Real, hands-on expertise in the exact type of cases the AG should be pursuing.
What's Broken
The AG's consumer protection division does good work. I want to be clear about that. But it's under-resourced and under-prioritized relative to the scale of the problem. Here's what I see:
Identity theft is at record levels. Minnesota consistently ranks among the top states for identity theft complaints. The AG's office should be leading the fight. not just publishing brochures about how to protect yourself, but actively investigating and prosecuting the networks that traffic in stolen personal information.
Elder fraud is epidemic. Scammers target Minnesota seniors with phone scams, romance scams, tech support scams, and financial exploitation schemes. Many victims are too embarrassed to report it. The ones who do often find that nobody follows up.
Predatory practices evolve faster than enforcement. Buy-now-pay-later schemes with hidden fees. Subscription traps. Data harvesting disguised as free services. The consumer protection apparatus was built for a different era. It needs to catch up.
What I'll Do
Hire consumer law practitioners. not just policy people. The AG's consumer protection team needs attorneys who have actually litigated these cases in the real world. Courtroom experience matters. I'll recruit from the consumer law bar. people who know how credit reporting, debt collection, and lending actually work at the granular level.
Create an Elder Fraud Strike Force. Dedicated prosecutors working with law enforcement, Adult Protective Services, and financial institutions to identify, investigate, and prosecute financial exploitation of seniors. Fast-tracked cases. Restitution as a priority.
Modernize consumer complaint processing. When a Minnesotan files a complaint with the AG's office, it should trigger real action. not just a letter to the company asking them to respond. Pattern detection across complaints. Automatic escalation when multiple consumers report the same bad actor.
Publish enforcement results. Minnesotans should know what the AG's consumer protection division is actually doing. How many complaints received. How many investigated. How many prosecuted. How much money recovered. Transparency breeds accountability.
Not a Campaign Issue. A Life's Work
Every candidate running for AG this year will say they care about consumer protection. Ask them how many consumer fraud cases they've actually tried. Ask them if they know the difference between a 623 dispute and a 611 dispute. Ask them if they've ever sat across from someone whose financial life has been destroyed and had to figure out how to put it back together.
This isn't a campaign issue for me. It's my life's work. And it's what I'll do as your Attorney General.
— Dave Madgett
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