The collection industry saved the average American household $351 in 2005. This amount represents dollars households would have spent if businesses were forced to raise prices to cover bad debt. The annual savings is the average household equivalent of 19 bags of groceries, 155 gallons of gas, or more than four months of electric bills. (Source: "Value of Third-Party Debt Collection to the U.S. Economy: Survey and Analysis," PricewaterhouseCoopers, June 2006.)
The $39 billion returned to creditors in 2005 represented a 22 percent reduction in private sector bad debt for the year. (Source: "Value of Third-Party Debt Collection to the U.S. Economy: Survey and Analysis," PricewaterhouseCoopers, June 2006.)