Supporting Consumers Impacted by COVID-19 And Beyond
Treating consumers with the empathy they deserve during hardships
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact many of us, PRA Group remains focused on the well-being and safety of our consumers, employees, clients, and communities we serve.
Since the beginning of this global outbreak, we’ve implemented additional hardship provisions through our subsidiary, Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC, to ensure we’re supporting our consumers to the best of our ability. We understand this is a difficult time and many people are experiencing financial distress.
Some of the measures we’ve taken include:
- Temporarily suspending collection activities when a consumer demonstrates that he or she is experiencing significant financial hardship due to job loss or medical issues related to COVID-19.
- Ceasing collection activities when documentation is received indicating that the consumer’s only source of income is from exempt sources, such as Social Security or Supplemental Security Income benefits, and that the consumer has access to no other assets.
- Working with and being sensitive to consumers who encounter unforeseen circumstances, such as job loss.
- Placing collection holds with respect to the consumer, not only the account. In other words, all of the consumer’s accounts would be suspended, not just on an account by account basis.
“Our goal is to ensure our consumers are treated with dignity and respect during this challenging and unprecedented time,” said Kevin Stevenson, president and chief executive officer of PRA Group. “We had hardship policies in place before the pandemic but these specific measures will allow those facing unfortunate financial setbacks after COVID-19 to recover and will cease collections activities entirely for those facing permanent challenges.”
The long-term economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis remains unknown, but one thing we’re sure about is that our company will always stay committed to supporting consumers with flexible and affordable options.
Please visit pragroup.com/covid-19 to stay up to date with how we are responding.