A charged-off data tape is the account-level file buyers use to model recovery. It is usually a spreadsheet or a flat extract. One row is one account. The bid is a percent of the balances on those rows, after the buyer throws out rows they will not board.

Packaging order of operations lives on seller packaging. This page is the field dictionary that page points to. The tape completeness tool scores a file against the same ideas before you send it.

Fields that change a bid

Field	What it is	If the cell is blank
Account ID	Seller’s stable key for the row. The same key should appear on the media index.	The buyer cannot tie a document to a balance. Sample review stalls.
Original creditor	The name on the contract, even if a later company is selling.	Chain of title is harder to read, and the buyer discounts the file.
Open date	When the account was originated.	Vintage becomes a guess. Models widen.
Charge-off date	The date the creditor charged the balance off.	Buyers treat vintage as unknown and bid the weak case.
Last payment date	Last payment posted before the extract, amount if you have it.	Recency is the first cut on many cards and loans. A blank reads as “no pay.”
Charge-off balance	Balance at charge-off. Say whether it includes fees and interest.	Face is not comparable across rows. The percent-of-face bid gets conservative.
Current balance	Balance on the extract date, after payments and reversals you have posted.	The buyer does not know which number is face. Name one and define it.
State	The state you use for collection and licensing review. Say which address it is.	A national buyer cannot tell which licenses the file needs.
Product	Card, auto deficiency, medical, personal loan, telecom, or the specialty product you actually sold.	Mixed products in one unlabeled column get priced as the weakest product in the mix.
Status flags	Bankruptcy, deceased, dispute, settlement, attorney, cease, paid-in-full, if you track them.	The buyer assumes the exclusions are still in the file and bids as if they are.
Placement count	How many agencies or buyers have already worked the account.	“Fresh” is a claim you cannot support. Prior work is priced in.
Media key	Pointer from the row to the document set: a folder name or an index value.	Media “available on request” with no count is read as media you do not have.

One definition of face

Say which column is face. Charge-off balance and current balance answer different questions. A purchase agreement that says “face” while the tape has three balance columns produces a funding fight. Pick the column, name it in the cover note, and use that name in the bill of sale schedule.

Keep consumer identifiers in the seller’s own system. A sample that leaves the building before NDA should be masked: no full account number, no full Social Security number, no full date of birth. After NDA, send the identifier your boarding file actually uses, and say so. Do not add a column of sensitive data just to make the spreadsheet look complete.

Flags worth a column of their own

Bankruptcy chapter and file date, deceased date, settled amount, and attorney representation change eligibility. A comment buried in a free-text cell is easy to miss and easy to dispute later. Put the flag in its own column. The bill of sale representations usually point at these flags: the seller says the schedule does not knowingly include accounts that were paid, deceased, or settled before the cut-off.

The longer preparation note is the article how to prepare a data tape buyers trust. Scoring before you circulate the file is the completeness tool.

What to send first

First send a snapshot with totals: accounts, face, product, charge-off window, top states. The row-level tape follows the NDA. A buyer who asks for every document before a mutual NDA is asking you to skip the step the desk is built around. Questions on a live file go to portfolios@debtmarket.net.

Fields that change a bid

One definition of face

Flags worth a column of their own

What to send first

Related DebtMarket pages