Most collection accounts on credit reports belong to a small group of companies. In SmartDispute’s data on 1,543 collection debts from the credit reports of 591 members, four debt buyers held 45% of them: LVNV Funding, Midland Credit Management, Jefferson Capital Systems, and Portfolio Recovery Associates. More than seven in ten members had at least one collection on their first credit report.
This article lists the debt collectors that showed up most often, which companies’ debts they collect, how quickly debts reach them, and what the data means when you’re deciding what to dispute.
Key Takeaways
- 72% of members had at least one collection account, with a median of three each.
- LVNV Funding was the most common collector by far, on the reports of 28% of all members.
- Debt buyers held 52% of collections and 87% of credit card collections. Collection agencies handled most phone, cable, insurance, and medical bills.
- Credit One Bank was the most common original creditor, with 156 collections, almost all owned by debt buyers.
- Only 55% of collections appeared on all three credit reports, and the same collector’s name was spelled differently at each bureau.
- Medical bills made up less than 5% of collections.
About the Data
The data comes from the first credit report of each of 591 SmartDispute.ai members, pulled when they joined, before any disputes. Every member had reports from all three bureaus. The first reports are dated February 2025 through October 2026.
We included every account classified as a collection account, meaning a debt reported by a collector that lists an original creditor. Charge-offs reported by the original lender are not included. When the same debt appeared at more than one bureau, we counted it once. The data is de-identified: it contains no names, Social Security numbers, or full account numbers.
One caution: these are people working to improve their credit. The patterns describe this group, not every consumer in the country, and collectors buy and sell portfolios all the time.
How Common Are Collection Accounts?
423 of the 591 members, 72%, had at least one collection on their first report. Among those members, the median was three collections, and 19 members had 10 or more. Across everyone in the data, that works out to 2.61 collections per member.
The typical collection wasn’t large. The median balance was $871, and 29% were under $500. But they added up: members with collections owed a median of $3,837 across all of them.
| Balance | Share of collections |
|---|---|
| Under $250 | 11% |
| $250 to $499 | 13% |
| $500 to $999 | 26% |
| $1,000 to $2,499 | 26% |
| $2,500 to $4,999 | 9% |
| $5,000 or more | 10% |
| $0 (paid or settled, still reported) | 4% |
List of the Most Common Debt Collectors
We found 196 different collectors in the data. These 15 appeared most often:
| Collector | Type | Collections | Share of all members | Median balance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LVNV Funding | Debt buyer | 296 | 28% | $900 |
| Midland Credit Management | Debt buyer | 154 | 16% | $1,005 |
| Jefferson Capital Systems | Debt buyer | 128 | 17% | $1,108 |
| Portfolio Recovery Associates | Debt buyer | 114 | 13% | $1,182 |
| Credit Collection Services | Agency | 67 | 9% | $199 |
| Caine & Weiner | Agency | 34 | 6% | $312 |
| I.C. System | Agency | 29 | 5% | $312 |
| NCB Management Services | Agency | 26 | 4% | $3,639 |
| National Credit Adjusters | Agency | 26 | 3% | $475 |
| Spring Oaks Capital | Debt buyer | 25 | 4% | $1,090 |
| Transworld Systems | Agency | 25 | 4% | $542 |
| Credence Resource Management | Agency | 23 | 4% | $991 |
| Cavalry Portfolio Services | Debt buyer | 15 | 3% | $4,180 |
| Harris & Harris | Agency | 15 | 3% | $479 |
| Security Credit Services | Debt buyer | 14 | 2% | $1,490 |
The top four stand apart. Together they held 45% of all collections, and 45% of members had at least one collection from one of them. LVNV Funding alone appeared on the reports of 167 members, more than one in four.
Debt Buyers vs. Collection Agencies
Collectors come in two kinds, and the difference matters when you dispute or negotiate:
- A debt buyer owns the debt. It bought the account from the original creditor, usually for a fraction of the balance, and collects for itself. It decides whether to settle, delete, sue, or resell.
- A collection agency collects for the original creditor, which still owns the debt. The agency can only settle within the creditor’s limits, and the creditor can take the account back and give it to another agency.
In the data, debt buyers held 52% of collections and agencies about 44%. The rest were original creditors and student loan holders that report their own defaulted accounts in a way that’s classified as a collection. The two groups collect very different kinds of debt:
| Type of debt | Share of collections | Usually held by |
|---|---|---|
| Credit cards and bank loans | 47% | Debt buyers (87%) |
| Phone, cable, and internet | 12% | Agencies, except Verizon and Sprint |
| Payday, installment, and buy now, pay later loans | 9% | Mostly debt buyers |
| Auto insurance | 8% | Agencies |
| Medical | 5% | Agencies |
| Utilities | 3% | Agencies |
| Student loans | 3% | The lender or loan holder |
| Rent, auto loans, gyms, and other | 13% | Mixed |
Agency collections were smaller, with a median balance of $572 compared with $1,038 for debt buyers. Agencies also reported most of the $0 balances in the data, accounts that were paid or settled but still listed as collections.
Which Companies’ Debts End Up in Collections?
The original creditor is the company you first owed. These were the most common, and who ended up collecting:
| Original creditor | Collections | Most common collectors |
|---|---|---|
| Credit One Bank | 156 | LVNV Funding (112), Midland (24), Portfolio Recovery (14) |
| Capital One | 94 | Portfolio Recovery (42), LVNV Funding (29), Midland (15) |
| The Bank of Missouri (Total, Fortiva, Milestone cards) | 84 | LVNV Funding (38), Midland (20), Jefferson Capital (13) |
| Synchrony Bank | 66 | Portfolio Recovery (27), Midland (16), NCB Management (10) |
| Progressive (auto insurance) | 59 | Caine & Weiner (31), Credit Collection Services (21) |
| Citibank | 45 | Midland (15), Portfolio Recovery (15), Cavalry (7) |
| WebBank (Avant, Fingerhut) | 45 | LVNV Funding (26), Midland (7) |
| Comenity Bank | 37 | Midland (30) |
| Comcast/Xfinity | 37 | Harris & Harris (10), I.C. System (7) |
| AT&T | 36 | Credence (12), I.C. System (10) |
| T-Mobile | 35 | Several agencies |
| Verizon | 24 | Jefferson Capital (24) |
A few patterns stand out:
- Credit One debts went almost entirely to debt buyers, mostly LVNV Funding. If you see an LVNV collection, there’s a good chance the original creditor was Credit One.
- Capital One sold too. Its charged-off cards showed up with Portfolio Recovery, LVNV, and Midland, many of them sold in 2024 and 2025.
- Some large banks didn’t appear at all. Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Discover, and First Premier weren’t the original creditor on a single collection in the data, which fits banks that keep their charged-off accounts and collect them directly or through law firms.
- Every Verizon collection was held by Jefferson Capital, while AT&T, T-Mobile, and Comcast debts went to agencies.
- Progressive auto insurance was the most common non-bank creditor, almost all collected by Caine & Weiner and Credit Collection Services.
For more on what happens to a debt after it’s charged off, see charge-off vs. collection.
How Quickly Debts Reach a Collector
Using the date of first delinquency each debt carried at Equifax, we measured how long it took for the collector to open its account:
- LVNV Funding and Midland typically picked up a debt about 7 months after the first missed payment, right after a credit card is charged off at around 180 days.
- Jefferson Capital (a median of 24 months) and Portfolio Recovery Associates (18 months) more often held older debt.
- Agencies got accounts faster, a median of 4 months, and Credit Collection Services and Caine & Weiner just 2.
At the time of the first report, the median collection was 30 months past its first delinquency. None was older than seven years, the most a collection can be reported under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. That seven-year period runs from the original delinquency, not from the date a collector bought the debt, so a collector’s account opened in 2025 can still be removed on the original schedule.
A note on these dates: Equifax was the only bureau whose delinquency dates in our data came from the creditor. The TransUnion and Experian dates in our data feed were estimates, so we didn’t use them. Your own reports from each bureau show when each collection is scheduled to be removed; our guide to how long negative accounts stay on your report explains how that date is set.
The Same Debt Looks Different at Each Bureau
Only 55% of collections appeared on all three credit reports. 26% appeared on two and 19% on just one, and 70% of members with collections had at least one that wasn’t on all three. Collectors aren’t required to report to every bureau, so a collection can be on one report and missing from another.
Even when a debt appeared everywhere, the bureaus didn’t describe it the same way:
- Status. TransUnion and Equifax listed more than 93% of collections as open. Experian listed 99.7% as closed. That’s a difference in how the bureaus display collections, not an error to dispute.
- Names. Each bureau shortened or spelled collector names its own way, as the table below shows.
- Account numbers. Jefferson Capital reported different account numbers to TransUnion and Equifax for the same debt, so don’t assume two different numbers mean two different debts.
| Collector | TransUnion | Equifax | Experian |
|---|---|---|---|
| LVNV Funding | LVNV FUNDING | LVNV FUNDING LLC | LVNV FUNDING LLC |
| Midland Credit Management | MIDLAND CRED | MIDLAND CREDIT MANAG | MIDLAND CREDIT MANAGEM |
| Jefferson Capital Systems | JEFFCAPSYS | JEFFERSON CAPITAL LL | JEFFERSON CAPITAL SYST |
| Portfolio Recovery Associates | PORTFOLIO RC | PORTFOLIO RECOVERY A | PORTFOLIO RECOV ASSOC |
| National Credit Adjusters | NCA | NATIONAL CREDIT ADJU | NATIONAL CREDIT ADJUST |
| Spring Oaks Capital | SPRINGOAKCAP | SPRING OAKS CAPITAL, | SPRING OAKS CAPITAL LL |
Medical Collections Are Now Rare
Medical bills made up less than 5% of collections in the data, and only five medical collections had balances under $500. That reflects changes the three bureaus made in 2022 and 2023: paid medical collections and those under $500 are no longer reported, and new medical collections wait a year before appearing. Sixteen medical collections in the data were less than a year past their first delinquency, which is worth checking against that one-year rule. Our guide to medical debt and your credit score covers the details.
What This Means for Your Collection Disputes
- Review all three reports separately. With 45% of collections missing from at least one bureau, a collection you dispute at one bureau may not be on the others, and a different one may be.
- Know who owns the debt. A debt buyer like LVNV or Midland can agree to delete or settle on its own. An agency has to answer to the original creditor.
- Match the debt, not the name. The same collector appears under different names and even different account numbers at each bureau. Compare the original creditor, balance, and dates.
- Check the dates. The seven-year clock runs from the original delinquency. A collection that’s still reported past that date, or one with a delinquency date that moved later, is worth disputing.
- Don’t dispute the status difference alone. “Open” at TransUnion and “closed” at Experian is normal for collections.
Our guide to disputing a collection account walks through each step, and how to remove collections from your credit report covers the options when the collection is accurate.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who are the biggest debt collectors?
In our data, the four largest were debt buyers: LVNV Funding, Midland Credit Management, Jefferson Capital Systems, and Portfolio Recovery Associates. Together they held 45% of all collections.
What’s the difference between a debt buyer and a collection agency?
A debt buyer owns the debt it collects. A collection agency collects for the original creditor, which still owns it. Debt buyers held most credit card collections; agencies handled most phone, insurance, and medical bills.
Why is a collection on one credit report but not the others?
Collectors don’t have to report to all three bureaus. Only 55% of collections in our data appeared on all three reports.
Why does my collection say open on one report and closed on another?
Experian lists nearly all collections as closed, while TransUnion and Equifax list them as open. It’s a difference in how the bureaus display collections.
Do credit card companies sell debt to collectors?
Many do. Credit One, Capital One, Synchrony, Citibank, and Comenity debts all appeared with debt buyers in our data. Others, including Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and Discover, didn’t appear as the original creditor on any collection.
