>why should I be required to pay a company I never

Because consumer debts are assets. Assets that someone owns and can sell to pretty much anyone else who wants to buy the assets. Over and over and over again. You owe them the money they used to buy the assets.

Consumer debt isn't worth as much as a debt secured by the underlying value of property, like the mortgage debt for your home or the loan you took out to buy a car, but they're assets nevertheless.

Your home can be foreclosed and your car can be repossessed and both sold to cover some of the lender's money you got to buy the home and the car in the first place. Your dinners at Nobu and The French Laundry, or your transplanted kidney, or the metal plate that's holding your skull together, not so much.