WASHINGTON– The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has released a report that found that more than one-in-four consumers with a credit report have at least one debt in collection by third-party debt collector.
The report, which covers 2004 to 2018, is drawn from the Bureau’s Consumer Credit Panel (CCP), a nationally representative sample of approximately five-million de-identified credit records maintained by one of the three nationwide credit reporting companies. Close to 900 third-party debt collectors furnished collection tradelines in the CCP. A tradeline is information about a consumer account that is sent, generally on a regular basis, to a credit reporting company. Tradelines contain data such as account balance, payment history, and status of the account.
According to the Bureau, the findings show 28% with a credit report in the CCP in 2018 had at least one third-party collections tradeline on their file. The study also found that more than three-out-of-four third-party collections tradelines are for non-financial debt. More than half (58%) of these tradelines are for medical debt and another 20% for telecommunications or utilities debt. Positive payment information is generally not furnished for medical or telecommunications debt, the CFPB said.
There are approximately 9,330 debt collectors and debt buyers in the United States.
The “Market Snapshot: Third-Party Debt Collections Tradeline Reporting” report can be found here.