Every record carries a status — currently enrolled, or dropped out — the company holding the enrollment, and an “as of” date. Refreshed as often as daily.
This is not a niche. Millions of consumers are enrolled with a debt settlement company right now — and a share of them is sitting in your portfolio.
in debt settlement programs between 2016 and 2025
across those programs in the same period
being worked through settlement companies, not creditors
Source: Ernst & Young study of the U.S. debt resolution industry, published October 2026 (covering 2016–2025), commissioned by the Association for Consumer Debt Relief (ACDR). Read the full study: Debt Settlement Program Outcomes, 2016–2025 (PDF) · the ACDR announcement.
Enrollment does not happen in a vacuum. These are the conditions pushing consumers into programs this quarter — the weather system behind every hit.
An all-time high across mortgage, auto, student, and revolving lines (Federal Reserve Bank of New York).
Revolving balances at record levels — the raw material settlement programs enroll.
At these rates, minimum payments mostly feed interest (Federal Reserve G.19). Principal barely moves.
of adults who could not cover a $400 emergency in cash (Federal Reserve SHED survey).
Annualized card transition rate into serious delinquency — up from 7.1% in 2019.
Year-over-year growth in inquiries for structured settlement and hardship programs entering Q4 2026.
TransUnion’s bureau data tells the same story from the other side of the ledger: its Q2 2026 Credit Industry Insights Report counts $18.6 trillion in total outstanding balances across 261.7 million consumers carrying a balance, with balance-level credit card delinquency at 1.98% — broad credit access, thin household cushions, and delinquency concentrated exactly where settlement programs enroll.
Read next: what debt settlement companies actually do — the services behind these numbers, and why the industry matters to the wider economy.
Every call, letter, and filing aimed at an enrolled account chases money that is already committed to a program. A hit stops that spend before it happens.
An enrolled consumer pays the settlement company — not you. Each hit names that company, so your settlement conversation starts in the right place.
A consumer who dropped out is workable again — but only if you know the day it happened. Monitoring watches your whole inventory for exactly that moment.
The Metro 2 “DS” code can’t ride on a guess — enrollment has to be verified first. A dated hit is the evidence behind the code. The DS code, explained →
In a debt settlement program today. The hit names the company that holds the enrollment.
Was enrolled and left the program. That account is workable again — and now you know it.
Every record keeps its history, with dates — including when a consumer left a program — each figure stamped “as of” the latest refresh.
For-profit debt settlement only — no credit-counseling (DMP) noise in the network.
Send your first file this week. We set up your secured access, run your full-inventory scrub, and turn monitoring on the same day — plans priced by volume, quoted for your portfolio.
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