Debt collection

New York state regulators have taken action against several Buffalo, N.Y.-area collection agency owners who were charged recently with preying on consumers - including military personnel.

The majority of U.S. financial institutions expect their consumer lending businesses to grow or remain steady in 2011.

Portfolio Recovery Associates Inc. posted record fourth-quarter revenue while profits soared nearly 70% from a year earlier, the debt buyer and collection agency announced Tuesday.

Quarterly and yearly profits at Encore Capital Group Inc. beat market expectations, helped by a huge jump in gross collections, the debt buyer and collection agency reported Monday.

Financial institutions are still faced with the age-old problem of trying to help their customer service representatives (CSRs) be successful at selling more banking products.

U.S. consumers average credit scores dropped two points to 667 since January 2010, as credit card debt fell by 9% to $7,200 in the same period, according to data Credit Karma released Thursday.

Debt buyer Asta Funding Inc. on Wednesday reported a decline in revenue due to a sharp drop in cash collections for its fiscal year first quarter ended Dec. 31.

For the fourth consecutive quarter, TransUnion's Credit Risk Index (CRI) declined - indicating consumers were less of a credit risk in 2010 compared with the previous year, the Chicago-based credit bureau reports.

U.S. consumers are spending more on their credit cards after two years of cutting back, according to the Federal Reserve's G.19 report released Monday. The first increase in credit card debt since the financial crisis began is a sign Americans are gaining confidence in the economy.

A new survey of risk managers across Europe shows many expect an improvement in credit card and auto loan performance in the next six months, with much less optimism for mortgage loans and small business loans.

Three companies that resell consumers’ credit reports settled Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charges that they did not take reasonable steps to protect consumers' personal information, failures that allowed computer hackers to access that data, the FTC announced Thursday.

SunGard officials announced Thursday that the company has acquired PredictiveMetrics, a company that provides predictive scoring and analytical services for collections, credit, utilities and other markets.

ACA International, the largest association representing collection agencies, debt buyers and collection attorneys, has responded to a report from the Consumers Union and East Bay Community Law Center called "Past Due: Why Debt Collection Practices and the Debt Buying Industry Need Reform Now."

A federal judge has shut down an operation that allegedly posed as the U.S. government, then duped consumers into paying fees ranging from $200 to $2,500 by claiming the fees would cover processing by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

A federal court has frozen the assets of corporations and an individual behind a vast Internet enterprise that allegedly made more than $275 million after luring consumers into “trial” memberships, and bogus government-grant and money-making schemes.

North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper's office last week banned a foreclosure assistance company from offering loan modification and foreclosure assistance services in the state.

Three companies and their owner, who allegedly falsely claimed they could help consumers quickly eliminate their credit card debts and stop calls from debt collectors, have been banned from the debt relief business under a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission.

The collection business has an exceptionally high churn rate compared with other industries, approximately 90% annually, according to industry sources.

The face value of business-to-business accounts placed in collections totaled $3.6 billion in the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, up nearly 3.4% from $3.5 billion in the third quarter, according to the Commercial Collection Agency Association, which tracks accounts placed with its members. The total face value increase was an estimated $119.3 million.

A total of 3,825,637 foreclosure filings — including default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions — were reported on a record 2,871,891 U.S. properties in 2010, an increase of nearly 2% from 2009 and an increase of 23% from 2008, according to RealtyTrac, an online marketplace for foreclosure properties, in its Year-End 2010 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report released Thursday.