Wall Street Journal Explores the Geography of Debt Collection

Debt collection professionals have long known that the physical location of a debtor plays a large role in the collectability of an account. In a feature in Monday’s edition of the Wall Street Journal, that concept is explored in-depth, largely from the perspective of debt buyers and collectors’ use of the court system.

The article, “In Debt Collecting, Location Matters,” uses a particular judge in an Indiana county as a jumping-off point to probe such matters as cost of geographic-specific debt portfolios, jurisdiction shopping for debt collection lawsuits, and collection strategy decisions made based on a debtor’s state of residence.

The piece, which is available only to online WSJ.com subscribers, notes that the collectability – and thus, the price buyers are willing to pay – of accounts differ widely from state to state, with debtor-friendly states like Texas seeing much lower prices than accounts located in states like Indiana.

But the article also explores subtle difference between counties in the same state, noting that some judges rarely see debt collection lawsuits because of their past rulings against debt collectors.