More than one-in-four consumers with a credit report have at least one debt in collection by the nation’s 9,330 third-party debt collectors and buyers, according to a report issued this week by the federal consumer financial protection agency.
Drawn for the period of 2004-18 from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) Consumer Credit Panel (CCP), a nationally representative sample of approximately 5 million de-identified credit records maintained by one of the three nationwide credit reporting companies, the report stated that 28% of consumers in the CCP had at least one third-party collection on their files.
The bureau said the study also found that more than three-in-four third-party collections tradelines are for non-financial debt, and 58% of the tradelines are for medical debt. Another 20% are for telecommunications or utilities debt. Positive payment information is generally not furnished for medical or telecommunications debt.
Market Snapshot: Third-Party Debt Collections Tradeline Reporting