Banks Use "Farming Kit" Lists To Pitch To Troubled Borrowers

"It's like I've got some big tag: target this person so you can get them back into debt," said Ms. Jerez, of Jersey City, who still gets offers, even as it has become clear that loans to troubled borrowers have become a chief cause of the financial crisis. One letter that arrived last month, from First Premier Bank, promoted a platinum MasterCard for people with "less-than-perfect credit."

Singling out even struggling American consumers like Ms. Jerez is one of the overlooked causes of the debt boom and the resulting crisis, which threatens to choke the global economy.

Using techniques that grew more sophisticated over the last decade, businesses comb through an array of sources, including bank and court records, to create detailed profiles of the financial lives of more than 100 million Americans.

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