Who hasn’t Googled an ex by now or found long lost friends and family through Facebook? The technology for finding people has been growing rapidly in the recent decades. Skip tracing has been a common practice for judgment collections companies since inception but with modern technology, debtors are having a harder time staying off the collections radar.
Judgment collectors used to have to sift through phone books, make extensive calls, and hound the neighbors in order to carry out skip tracing business. However the professionals in judgment collections businesses such as Accounts Retrievable have been able to utilize the digital trail that debtors leave behind to enforce judgments. The debtor doesn’t even have to be in the same state or country as the judgment collection company because with use of a computer or even a smart phone, debt collectors can track anyone down. Even police enforcement agencies are utilizing social media and social networking as a viable tool for solving and prosecuting crimes.
People are becoming more and more dependent on their smart phone. The benefit to skip tracers is that these smart phones have GPS hard wired into them and every app or function is usually geo-tagged when in use. The lines of right to privacy are more than a little blurred in this growing technology but as a judgment collector, this can be used to benefit your creditors. Even if a person is not necessary checking in on apps such as Foursquare or Facebook, their location can show up just from posting or searching.
With a little bit of know-how, social networking can be a great benefit for tracking down debtors. We can even track down those who are hiding out in other states dodging their child support payments or the judgment that has been placed on them. Skip tracing used to be an impossible job that required a large amount of foot work and paper work.
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The enforcement of foreign judgments is the recognition and enforcement of judgments rendered in a foreign jurisdiction. This can mean other countries or simply another state. Once a a creditor is awarded a foreign judgment, they can then seek its enforcement. The judgment creditor then has all the access to all the enforcement remedies such as wage garnishment and judicial sale.
These types of judgments can be difficult for an individual to collect on due to the complexity of the laws regarding foreign judgments. Depending on the country or state, the laws can differ. It to this point that you will need to seek out a third party agency to collect and carry out enforcements of judgment. A debt collections agency has access to all types of lawyers and enforcement professionals that can collect your foreign judgment.
Accounts Retrievable is a national judgment network that can bring about quick and effective results when collecting foreign judgments.
Accounts Retrievable Collection Agency – Enforcing A Judgment
If your business has struggled with collecting on past due accounts, you may want to consider hiring a collection agency. If you’ve already made the decision to hire a collection agency, consider us. The Accounts Retrievable is a national collection agency that serves the needs of respected clients on a worldwide basis. Our clients include many different industries and different types of businesses such as wholesalers, retailers, credit unions, law firms, universities, banks, manufactures, and mail order companies. We receive claims from creditors all over the United States and even internationally. We receive claims against debtors all throughout the country. All of the staff at Accounts Retrievable are professionals and experienced in every aspect of debt recovery.
At Accounts Retrievable, our goal is to provide fas and efficient collection services at competitive rates. The standard in the collection agency is collecting on a contingency fee basis. We work on a contingency fee basis which means that if we collect we earn a fee from the money collected. If we do not collect on your account(s), we do not charge you for our efforts.
We collect on different accounts such as Judgments, past due child support, past due alimony, and other accounts from all different businesses and industries. If a judgment is entered in your favor this entitles you to certain remedies under the law. These laws enable us to collect the balance due on your judgment. Remedies that we will use to collect your judgment include garnishment of debtors bank and brokerage accounts, garnishment of wages and levy and execution of personal property. Personal property includes automobiles, boats, equipment, etc. And in exceptional cases we can levy and execute real estate and business assets.
Accounts Retrievable Systems – Hiring A Debt Collection Agency
Deciding on your debt collection agency is a task which is crucial for your business. You cannot afford to get it wrong. Keeping a few points in mind while choosing your agency would help.
Debt Collection Agencies (DCAs) offer third-party assistance when your best efforts to collect debt are thwarted. They are a pre-legal course you could take for debt collection. Services of a reputable DCA are designed to protect your reputation, retain your customer base and maximize your cash flow. However, you should examine all DCAs on the table against some basic criteria. Decide on a DCA that ticks all of your boxes.
How to Choose Your Collection Agency
Following a well thought out procedure while selecting a Debt Recovery Agency will always help.
Searching the database of the Credit Services Association (CSA) is the best place to look for a Debt Collection Agency (DCA). The CSA is the umbrella body for the collection industry, which bounds its members with its Code of Practice. This ensures legal and ethical practices, high business standards , and fairness in dealing with your customers.
However, before you visit CSA website, you should determine whether you need B2B or B2C competent debt collectors. Every agency has its core competency in B2B or B2C debt collections. Both the streams require different skills sets and working practices are also different.
So look at this aspect before taking the final call.
When you have readied a shortlist of DCAs, begin testing their openness, integrity and customer service skills. For determining their level of competency, ask them following questions:
• Do you have customers in my particular business stream?
• Can you offer me references that I can contact?
• Do you operate on a no-collection-no-commission basis?
• What are your remittance rules?
• Do you provide online performance reporting?
If the DCA provides satisfactory answers to your questions, you can move ahead.
Now is the time to take a final call on appointing the DCA. Make an appointment with the DCAs you have finalized and put up all the queries you have. You could ask them whether they have in-house tracing system to locate absconded debtors, their skills regarding overseas collection, and in-house legal assistance.
Legal Angle
In Canada, debt collection is governed by the Collection Agencies Act, which could differ from state to state. Objective of the law is to get away with abusive practices in the collection of consumer debts and to promote fair debt collection. It provides debtors with an avenue for disputing and obtaining validation of debt information. Debt collectors may conduct their business under the guidelines laid down by the Act.
Basic Debt Collection Skills
A debt collector must have some certain basic skills to succeed in his job:
Negotiation:He has to be a good negotiator. He will be required to convince debtors about repaying their debts and secure their acceptance of cash settlement plan.
Firm but Fair: A debt collector has to be firm but should make unreasonable demands.
Investigation:To investigate is a part of debt collector’s job. He might be required to trace an absconding debtor or find out details of a persons’ finance.
Fair Debt Collection Practices:Collectors should be well-versed with the fair debt collection practices. An aberration could land them and the agency in legal trouble.
It is practically unavoidable. If you extend credit, you will eventually have some customers who don’t pay their bills. And after you finally tire of listening to their excuses — or cursing their uncanny ability to avoid your phone calls — you will think about contacting a collection agency.
No shame in that — businesses do it every day. In 2007, the latest year for which data are available, the collections industry recovered $51 billion on behalf of clients, keeping $11 billion in commissions and netting $40 billion for the creditors who hired them. Good collection agencies have the time and expertise to recover outstanding debts that your small business may not.
Contrary to popular perception, there are plenty of good bill collectors out there. While the occasional bad actor gets the headlines, less than 0.01 percent of all collection contacts end in complaints to state or federal regulators or the Better Business Bureau, according to ACA International, a Minneapolis, Minnesota-based industry trade group.
With a little due diligence, you can find a good one. But it helps if you act promptly. “Time is the weapon of the debtor,” explains Martin Sher, president of ACA International and co-owner of AmSher Receivables Management, a collection agency based in Birmingham, Alabama. “The longer time goes by, the greater the chance that a debt is not going to be collectible.”
Finding a reliable agency
Once you’ve committed to the idea of hiring an agency, you can ask for referrals from your accountant, your attorney, or business contacts you might have in your trade organization or local Chamber of Commerce. Or you could visit the ACA International website, where you can search through its 3,200 member agencies by city and state. Each of the organization’s members is required to pledge adherence to its code of ethics.
Next, find out if the agency is a good fit for your business. Ideally, you want an agency that has done work for other companies in your industry involving the same types of debts. While bigger firms often handle both commercial and consumer debts, many agencies specialize in one or the other, and often specialize in certain industries, too.
Also check to see whether the company is licensed to operate in all 50 states. If you’re trying to collect from one local customer, it’s OK if the agency is only licensed in your state. But if your debtor or debtors are crossing state lines — or have businesses or residences in other states — you’ll want an agency authorized to go after your money in those areas.
Once you’ve confirmed that an agency is a good fit, visit it. Talk to the owners and the customer service representative who will be your contact, ask about their background, listen to collection conversations, and check out the agency’s technology. “If you can see something, you can understand it better,” Sher says.
Ask for references from the agency, too. Ideally, you want a list of all the agency’s clients operating in your industry, not just a handful the agency has cherry-picked.
Is it worth the investment?
Finally, it’s time to talk about price. Collection agencies work on a commission basis, retaining some percentage of what they collect. Counterintuitively, the agency quoting the lowest rate, or “contingency fee,” may not be the best bargain. If that low fee means the firm devotes less time, energy and technology to pursuing your past-due debts, it may collect less, minimizing your net recovery.
Think of it this way: You’d rather pay a 20 percent contingency fee to someone who collects $100,000 of your past-due debts than a 10 percent fee to someone who only collects $20,000.
In practice, contingency fees vary dramatically depending upon the type of debt you’re asking an agency to collect and its age. The fee could be as little as 10 percent for a big-balance debt that’s put into collections early, Sher notes, and as much as 50 percent or more for older, smaller debts owed by subprime borrowers.
“Ask the agency what they think would be a fair price and what they will do to get the highest possible recovery rate,” Sher says. “Most want to charge you the exact right rate so you’ll stay with them and be a long-term client.”
After you’ve settled on an agency, strive to develop a good working relationship with it. “When you hire a collection agency, you’re hiring a business partner,” Sher says. “Smart clients meet with their agencies, discuss any issues that arise, provide them with any information they need, and give them feedback.”
After all, the more they succeed, the more money you return to your pocket.
Accounts Retrievable Systems - Collection Of Debts
A collection agency is a business that pursues payments of debts owed by individuals or businesses. Most collection agencies operate as agents of creditors and collect debts for a fee or percentage of the total amount owed.
There are many types of collection agencies. A first-party collection agency is oftentimes a subsidiary of the original company the debt is owed to. Third-party agencies are separate companies contracted by a company to collect debts on their behalf for a fee. Debt buyers purchase the debt at a percentage of its value, then attempt to collect it. Each country has its own rules and regulations regarding them.
