Dealing with debts sold to collection agencies and other companies
If you have a debt that's been in arrears, you might find your creditor uses a debt collection agency to chase you for payment, or that they sell your debt on to a debt purchaser.
Debts regulated by the Consumer Credit Act, can be sold on or placed with another company any time after you stop paying, this is a normal part of the debt collection process. This applies to most common types of consumer debt such as a loans, overdrafts, credit cards and store cards, hire purchase and catalogues.
Why do creditors sell debts?
Most creditors specialise in lending money and collecting it. They don’t specialise in chasing debts which are in arrears, or trying to find people who are not paying. Instead they usually employ the services of debt collection agencies or sell the debt on to debt purchasers.
What happens when a debt is sold to a collection agency?
A ‘debt purchaser’ buys up debts to collect rather than chasing debts owned by other companies.
The benefits of selling the debt are that the creditor usually has no more involvement in collecting it, and they get some money back straight away.
Who buys debts?
Some collection agencies may buy debts and also chase debts on a creditor’s behalf.
Creditors will usually sell or ‘assign’ a large amount of debts to a debt purchaser. The debts will be sold at less than their face value, but the debt purchaser is entitled to collect the full balance. This is where their profit comes from.
For example, if a debt of £100 is sold to a collection agency for £70, they’ll try to collect the whole amount and make £30 profit. The amount paid for debts when they’re sold is usually confidential between the creditor and collection agency and it’s unlikely they’ll tell you.