Portfolio Recovery Associates: Buying Consumer Debt for Almost Two Decades

Many banks and financial institutions whose in-house debt collections department fails to recover delinquent receivables write them off their books. However, the story doesn’t end there. In fact, this is just the beginning of another story, stories of companies like Portfolio Recovery Associates.

Portfolio Recovery Associates (PRA) is in the business of buying these written off debts and attempts their own collection strategies to recover the amounts owed. The company was founded in 1996 and now has operations in the United Kingdom.

Aside from their core business of debt collections, the company also provides other services like asset recovery. This is most common in cases where a consumer takes out an auto loan and defaults on that loan. The company is tasked to locate and recover the vehicle or any other collateral.
CEO Steve Fredrickson leads PRA and the company has 3,200 employees in the United States and United Kingdom.