A debt is a debt, whether you call it an elephant or Donald Duck.  A $5,000 debt is owed by you to the Diamond Cabaret.  You fail to honor your debt.  Diamond turns the account, or assigns the account to Mike Sawaya for collections.  Still a debt, right?  Sawaya spends a year trying to squeeze the money out of you, but you resist.  Then ABC tells Sawaya they will buy the debt for $200.  The ABC Company goes after you for $8,000.  The transfer of ownership of the encumbrance does not change the fact that you owe a debt.  You take out a $800,000 mortgage loan with United Mortgage, and the mortgage is sold seven or eight times over a period of ten years, but the third or fourth owner of the mortgage retains the right to service the mortgage.  The mortgage is not retired because it changed hands so many times.  The mortgage is a debt, and efforts to persuade you to pay if you are in arrears is still "debt collection."