A collection agency is a business that pursues payments of debts owed by individuals or businesses. Most collection agencies operate as agents of creditors and collect debts for a fee or percentage of the total amount owed.
There are many types of collection agencies. First-party agencies are oftentimes subsidiaries of the original company the debt is owed to. Third-party agencies are separate companies contracted by a company to collect debts on their behalf for a fee. Debt buyers purchase the debt at a percentage of its value, then attempt to collect it. Each country has its own rules and regulations regarding them.
Read more about Collection Agency: First-party Agencies, Third Party Agencies, Sale of Debts, Debtors, Collection Practices
Famous quotes containing the words collection and/or agency:
“The society would permit no books of fiction in its collection because the town fathers believed that fiction ‘worketh abomination and maketh a lie.’”
—For the State of Rhode Island, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“It is possible that the telephone has been responsible for more business inefficiency than any other agency except laudanum.... In the old days when you wanted to get in touch with a man you wrote a note, sprinkled it with sand, and gave it to a man on horseback. It probably was delivered within half an hour, depending on how big a lunch the horse had had. But in these busy days of rush-rush-rush, it is sometimes a week before you can catch your man on the telephone.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)