January

Consumer debt collections

January is rebuilding collections, which it describes as running like an emergency room: you arrive in crisis, get triaged by a stranger who does not know your history, and leave with no follow-up. The company is turning that into something closer to primary care for consumer finance. Seventy million Americans fall behind on a debt each year, and most want to pay — starting at the hardest, most broken stage is deliberate, on the logic that what works there works anywhere.