What Debt Buying Entails These Days

By Barbara Reed


Like the name implies, a debt buyer refers to a company or individual who buys charged-off or delinquent debts from creditors so that they can try and collect them. The company buying the debts may be a private debt collection law firm or a collection agency. Debt buying firms may use their own resources or may employ the services of another firm to try and collect the amount owed.

Sometimes companies that buy debts also repackage and resell them in portions or in whole. In short, once debts have been bought, many different actions can be taken by the purchaser to collect the amount owed. Debts cannot be sold to a third party by a creditor unless it has been in default for a given amount of time. The debtor will usually be notified of the change in ownership of sum owed.

There is a big difference between collection agencies and companies involved with purchase of debts from debtors. Such companies are usually the new owners of the debts they buy as opposed to collection agencies that represent and work for the creditor. Any connections between debtors and creditors resulting from debts are usually terminated upon transfer of ownership. Future dealing now happen between the new owner and the debtor.

Buyers make exorbitant profits from debts they buy because they pay very low prices for them. Bulk purchasing coupled with low costs translates into big profits. Sometimes just a fraction of the debt is collected, but they still make good profits because of the low purchase costs involved. That is the reason debtors receive good settlement offers on sold debts.

It is a bad as well as a good thing for the debtor when ownership of debts is transferred. A debtor benefits if the new owner is not aggressive in collecting and offers a favourable settlement deal. However, it can be a nightmare if the new buyer sues in order to collect. Some buyers sue more often than other.

One problem with sold debts is that the information is mostly largely inaccurate. In fact, creditors sell debts as is, which implies that they may not guarantee the accuracy of information given. Additionally, creditors often fail to provide all information or the original paperwork involved in the process. Sometimes, this makes it hard for buyers to collect and sometimes, it may make things more difficult for debtors.

One of the issues that is likely to arise from buying of debts is that original creditors may have failed to credit payments made by a debtor. They may also miscalculate interest charged on the amount owed. In addition to that, the debtor may not have any way of knowing if the sum owed still holds or was discharged in bankruptcy.

The bright side however, is that debts are sometimes too old to be collected through lawsuits. This leaves the buyer at the mercies of the debtor. A debtor can pay if they want or they may not pay since the buyer cannot take any legal action against them.




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