Debt buyers range in size from very small private businesses to multi-million dollar publicly traded companies - there are currently four publicly traded debt buyers.

Debt buyers purchase the debt at a percentage of its value, then attempt to collect it.

Credit card debt comprises seventy percent of the accounts sold to debt buyers, followed by automobile loans, telecommunications debt and retail accounts.

As the visibility and profitability of the industry has grown, so too has competition, both in terms of the number of debt buyers and the rising prices of bad debt.