"Last Week Tonight" host John Oliver triumphantly used his HBO platform to tackle the mounting issue of debt, purchasing nearly $15 million in medical debt from nearly 9,000 people and instantly giving it all away.

Oliver sarcastically noted his on-air giveaway even tops the $8 million in new autos TV talk show host queen Oprah Winfrey once showered her audience with.

American Consumers owe Trillions in Debt

But statistics show the issue of debt is hardly a laughing matter. According to Oliver, American households are now saddled with over $12 trillion in debt, $436 billion of which is at least 90 days in arrears.

So massive is the amount owed by every-day people, it's spawned a billion-dollar industry all of its own, where companies purchase the right to collect debts from original creditors.

Encore Capital is widely noted as the largest such functioning operation, an organization that readily boasts at least 1 in 5 consumers either owes them money or has in the past. 

And if that's not enough, there's the growing issue of "zombie debt," or debt that was believed to be settled or buried only to be resurrected by the pursuits of collection agencies.

"It is a financial woe that has a lot in common with the zombies on 'The Walking Dead,'" Oliver highlighted. "Zombie debt comes back from the grave, is incredibly hard to deal with, and seems to disproportionately affect minorities."

The Creation of CARP

Oliver's organization is officially known as Central Asset Recovery Professionals (CARP) and the bottom-line amount of debt it acquired and dismissed was $14,922,261.76.

Beyond stressing the unscrupulous methods used by many organizations in seeking to collect, Oliver added, "Any added any idiot can get into it, and I can prove that to you, because I'm an idiot and I started a debt buying company and it was disturbingly easy."

Oliver added CARP was legally authorized to assume control of a file bearing all the names, personal addresses and Social Security numbers of the thousands of people who owed them and have its employees start contacting them.

"There would be absolutely nothing wrong with except for the fact that absolutely everything is wrong with that," he said. "We need much clearer rules and oversight."