 Since Dodd Frank, the "passive" debt buyer has all but become extinct.In a 2005 article published in "Business Credit" journal, the author Paul Legrady distinguished between first, second and third-party collection agencies.First-party collection agencies tend to nurture more constructive relationships with the second-party (called consumers or debtors) and are involved in the early months before they selling or passing the debt on to a third-party.