These people have a mental illness. They’re being taken advantage of by unscrupulous companies. They’re in exactly the same boat as people with gambling addictions. We should feel bad for them, but not (always*) as bad as homeless folks, who are still worse off.

*One of my elementary school teachers was married to a gambling addict. The guy was secretly hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and had stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of heavy construction equipment to pay off some of his loans. The guy ended up in a police chase and took his own life before he could be arrested. His wife, the teacher, was left massively in debt (he had secretly remortgaged the family house to pay for gambling debts) and grieving the loss of her husband but also in shock at discovering the extent of his crimes and debts. Really awful situation and nothing but profits for the casinos!