PRA Group facts for kids
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Formerly
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| Traded as | NASDAQ: PRAA S&P 600 Component |
| Founded | March 1996 (as Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC ) Norfolk, Virginia, U.S. |
| Headquarters |
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United States
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Key people
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Vikram Atal (President and CEO) |
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Number of employees
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3,277 |
| Subsidiaries |
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PRA Group, Inc. is a company that buys old debts from banks and other financial groups. It is based in Norfolk, Virginia, in the United States. The company buys debts that people haven't paid yet at a lower price. Then, it tries to collect the full amount of money that was originally owed.
PRA Group started in 1996. Today, it has more than 3,200 employees. They work in 18 different countries around the world.
Contents
History of PRA Group
PRA Group began in March 1996. It was first called Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC. Kevin Stevenson and Steve Fredrickson, who used to work in debt collection, founded it. They started with four employees in Norfolk, Virginia.
The company began buying debts in May 1996. By 2000, PRA had bought one billion dollars worth of debt. At that time, it was known as Portfolio Recovery Associates Inc. It was one of the ten largest debt buyers in the United States.
Growth and Expansion
In 2000, the company opened a call center in Hutchinson, Kansas. By 2001, 75 people worked there to collect debts. The main call center was in Virginia Beach, Virginia. It had 380 collectors and supervisors.
By 2002, about half of the debts the company owned came from big credit card companies. These included Visa, MasterCard, and Discover. The total value of these debts was $4.7 billion. This money was owed by 1.5 million different people. In 2002, PRA had 590 employees in total.
PRA became a public company on November 8, 2002. This means its shares could be bought and sold on the stock market. They sold 3.9 million shares for $13 each, raising $50.7 million.
In April 2010, PRA gained control of a company called Claims Compensation Bureau. This company helps people and businesses get money back from class-action settlements.
By 2013, PRA was one of the top five debt buyers in the U.S. In October 2014, the company changed its name. It went from Portfolio Recovery Associates, Inc. to PRA Group, Inc. In 2015, PRA Group bought Aktiv Kapital. This was a debt buyer and lender based in Norway. It operated in Europe and Canada. In 2020, the company also started working in Australia.
Legal Actions and Rules
PRA Group has faced legal actions and fines. These were from groups like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the New York Attorney General. These actions were about how the company collected debts.
Settlements and Fines
In 2014, the New York Attorney General reached an agreement with PRA. This was because PRA had brought many debt collection lawsuits against people in New York. The agreement required PRA to stop some claims against debtors. It also had to change how it collected debts and pay a fine.
In May 2015, a jury ordered PRA to pay a large amount of money. This was for pursuing a woman in Kansas City for a $1,000 credit card debt she did not owe. The company was also fined for not following rules about debt collection.
In September 2015, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ordered PRA to pay an $8 million penalty. They also had to give $19 million back to consumers. The CFPB also told the company to stop trying to collect over $3 million in debts. The CFPB found that PRA:
- Tried to collect debts by misleading people.
- Gave wrong information about how much was owed or when payments were due.
- Did not provide documents to prove debts.
- Filed court cases without proper documents.
- Filed cases for debts that were too old to be legally collected.
In March 2023, PRA was fined $24 million. This was for continuing to use improper debt collection methods. The head of the agency said that even after the 2015 action, PRA kept breaking the law.
In 2024, PRA paid $5.5 million to settle a lawsuit. This lawsuit claimed the company did not follow North Carolina debt collection law. It was about getting court orders against debtors without enough proof of the debts.
PRA Group's Other Businesses
PRA Group has several other companies that it owns. These are called subsidiaries.
- Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC: This part of the company buys and collects debts.
- PRA Receivables Management, LLC: This group buys and manages accounts from companies that are bankrupt or unable to pay their debts.
- PRA Location Services: This helps car lenders and insurance companies find missing items that were used as collateral for loans.
- Claims Compensation Bureau (CCB): This company keeps track of and files claims for money owed from class action lawsuits. It does this for large investors and businesses.
