Glossary · Collections & your rights

Debt buyer

A company that buys charged-off tribal loans for pennies and tries to collect the full balance.

What "debt buyer" means

When a tribal borrower stops paying, the lender usually doesn't sue — it sells the charged-off balance to a third-party debt buyer for a fraction of its face value. That buyer is often the entity that then contacts you (for example, Global Trust Management buys defaulted Mobiloans accounts).

A debt buyer must prove it owns an enforceable debt — which is hard when the underlying loan may be void in your state or was cancelled in a settlement. Never assume a collector's balance is valid before checking.