Capital Acquisitions and Management Corporation (CAMCO) was a United States debt collection agency and subsidiary of Risk Management Financial Services, Inc., that was fined and closed down for repeated violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). Its closure marked the first time a Federal Trade Commission investigation shut down a collection company.
Business model
CAMCO was a debt buyer, a type of company that purchases delinquent consumer debts from original creditors or other debt buyers. The company specialized in acquiring long-overdue accounts receivable - often more than a decade old - that were well beyond the statute of limitations for legal enforcement. Because these debts were essentially uncollectible through the courts, CAMCO purchased them for fractions of a penny on the dollar.[1]
According to the FTC, many of the debts CAMCO sought to collect were time-barred, meaning they could no longer be enforced through litigation, and were also beyond the reporting period permitted under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Some debts had already been discharged in bankruptcy or had previously been paid in full.[2]