Commercial Debt Collector Keys in on Global Trade

It’s a familiar story in Western New York, when a company decides to depart for a bigger city. But sometimes things go the other way.

ABC-Amega Inc., a Buffalo-based collector of business debt, decided to close its Tustin, Calif., office this spring. International collections, the California site’s task, were moved to the home office on Main Street.

“We think the international business is really best done from Buffalo…we can find the foreign language skills and international business background we need here,” chief executive David I. Herer said.

In fact, there are nine languages spoken at Amega, including Portuguese, Japanese and Mandarin Chinese, and cross-border collections are growing fast. Graduates from the University at Buffalo School of Management have bolstered the international skill set, Herer said.

Founded as a one-person operation in 1929 called American Bureau of Collections, the privately held company has grown to employ 140 local workers today. As a “business-to-business” firm it collects overdue bills from companies on behalf of other companies.

Clients like Nike, Microsoft and Warner Bros. are never eager to pay someone else to collect their late accounts. And when they do turn to an outside collector, there are plenty to choose from.

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