New York Times Strikes Another Chord for Collectors

The New York Times appears to have discovered the positive side of the collections industry. This time around, it chronicles the value of collection jobs in the Buffalo, N.Y. region.

The article, running in Friday editions in the “New York Region” section, details what many in the collection industry have known for quite a while: the Western New York region in and around Buffalo has become a hotbed for collection agency activity. Collection call centers are filling the void left by shuttered manufacturing plants and businesses in other industries.

Citing state Department of Labor statistics, the article said that collection agencies employ some 5,200 people in the area, a number that is expected to grow more than 22 percent by 2014. But that figure may be low, since some call centers that primarily engage in collection work are classified simply as call centers rather than collection agencies.

Last Friday, The New York Times ran an article on the front page of its print edition noting that collectors were attempting to change their public perception by dealing with consumers in a friendlier way (“The New York Times Praises Collectors on Front Page,” March 14).

Today’s article also explores the more commonly-reported side of the collection industry: complaints. One of the collection agencies profiled in the piece, Capital Management Services, resigned from its local Better Business Bureau last year under a crush of complaints and facing certain expulsion from the group (“Two Collection Agencies Resign from Buffalo BBB,” Oct. 4, 2007).

The article can be found on the New York Times web site at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/21/nyregion/21debt.html.