The debt collection system is skewed towards the business or person that owes you money. All the debtor has to do is NOT PAY YOU, whilst you have to jump through hoops and pay ridiculous fees to lawyers and courts. AND even when you get a judgement, the debtor might not pay.

This process takes months and months before you see anything happening, let alone get a result.

Are you upset that you want focussed action, yet your solicitor says “it takes time” or we are waiting for this or that.

Traditional debt collectors – solicitors or debt collection agencies have huge numbers of clients. Their ratio of collector to debtor is tiny. Some are as little as 2,000 debtors to 1 collector. They depend on process and little by little.

Is that what you want? Just another statistic for a faceless bureaucrat.

You could go to court. The two major problems here, are that some businesses/debtors will simply transfer assets to another company or person.

The business will have a legal department. The job of the legal department is to prevaricate and hope you will give up or run out of money.

Do you want to be the pawn in THEIR game. Or do you want to be in control.

For over 40 years, we have worked with solicitors and debt collection agents and they are truly overwhelmed by the amount of cases they take on.

They are more interested in getting new accounts paying fees than actually focusing on collecting your debt. Their focus is getting new money – FROM YOU.

Most of them will make most of their profit from new busness fees rather than commission on debt collection.

Ask the company you choose to collect your debt who their highest paid people are in their company. 99% will say their salespeople are, and not their collecting staff. That says a lot about what they want to achieve.

In over 40 years in collection we have only found 1 collector who earned more than a new business account manager.

Would you rather the person being paid the most was the person collecting yuour money?

40 years in collections gives us an insight to cherry picking. Companies and collection staff will focus on the low lying fruit. Those easily collected accounts are the ones at the top of their diaries. They perceive difficult or complex cases as detrimental to their earning potential. These difficult cases are at the bottom of the pile.

For collectors on low basic income and working on commission, it is only human. There is nothing that can be done with this. Especially in a company with 1,000’s or 10,000’s of clients.

In fact, many companies end up spending a fortune on monitoring staff rather than focusing on collections. Who guards the guards in these days of excessive data monitoring?

To give new clients better collection results, some companies will divest themselves of difficult cases by passing/selling them onto other collection agencies for a fee! This fee is shown as successful collections, yet they have not collected a penny for the debtor.

In addition to the above they will return difficult debts back to the client to remove them from their portfolio.

On the face of it, this seems like a great idea. However, something or somebody must pay for getting the account on board and commencing action to get your money back. Someone has to pay for staff and buildings and postage and telephony.

What they do is put the account through their internal “scoring” system. The ones they reckon are easy to collect go to their best collectors and into a proactive collecting queue. This queue will include many letters and telephone calls. In addition, they are followed up at the TOP of the daily work lists.

If your account is not on the easy list, you might be lucky to be on list 2 or 3 with a less experienced collector, less letters (they cost money) and definitely less calls. The cost of a call is a lot more than you think. Plus – spending time and a difficult case keeps them away from their “milk runs” of easy debtors.  

If your case is with a legal firm focusing on court work, it might be a paralegal or junior member of the team, who works your case. Rainmakers are seeking out new clients.

What they hope for is that they will strike lucky and that your debtor pays and charge you 40% commission.

Are you totally frustrated when you tell your lawyer or debt collection company that your debtor is earning money somewhere, whilst not paying you! And they tell you that your account is in the process or work queue or something. THEY do not want to jeopardize their collection process.

Your debtor is still collecting franchise fees or investments, or loans and your debt recovery company does zero – very annoying.

Do you want to be confined by your debt or credit collection agent working 9 am to 5 pm Monday to Friday? Are they going to stop for public holidays? Or the court has a backlog? Your agent is off sick or on holiday?

Non payers don’t stop not paying!

Is the person collecting your debt for you, more interested in a result for you or protecting their companies reputation? Make no bones about it – their reputation is far more important than gaining you a result.  

You pay your fee or whatever and you feel that you are in limbo. Nothing appears to be happening. You feel that you are no further forward than you were last week! You want something done soon, today – NOW.

You want to know that your debtor is feeling a little pain.

It is mutlpile times more frustrating with international debt collection, when everyine is in a different time zone and not contactable.

You have employed legal counsel. Do they actually get in contact with the debtor? Or do they chat back and forth with other counsel? We know the answer to that one. They come to the agreement that THEY want and not the outcome you hope for.

They do  not wish to lower their standards by actually talikng to a debtor.

Gives us this or that document. Can you prove when, where and why? We need you to come to our office to make a statement. Can you appear in court? You gave us this document; however, we need further proof – we need further proof!

You will find it exceptionally difficult when you have been a target for scammers and there is little proof.

Does this ring a bell?

Many firms of lawyers and debt collection specialists talk about how smooth it is to take someone to court.

What they don’t say is that it is no cheaper nor more effective.  It’s easier for them! It only gives the debtor more time to ignore you.

Is a big thing now. And believe us, debtors use it at the drop of a hat to have collection action halted. It’s as though you are in the wrong wanting your money back – you have to be very careful of what you say.

Do you really know what you can or cannot say?

The following is common, and I use £GBP. A top collector will receive about £20,000 per annum – she/he actually does the collecting on your behalf.

6 or 7 collectors will have a team leader earning £30,000 per annum – very rarely does a team leader actually collect. They make reports and give opinion.

The department will have a data “policeman” watching their activities, earning £50,000 per annum. If this data person sees an error the collector gets it in the ear. They do absolutely zero for the collection process. They are interested in: Did you confirm you had the right person? Did you follow all procedures? Did you treat the debtor fairly? They might, just might, ask if they got a result!

Then there will be a departmental manager, a director for collections, an MD/CEO, shareholders. The list of people being paid is endless.

By the by: Did you know that In the UK, collection companies are barred from offering incentives to collectors to collect payment? Can you believe that they are not allowed to be performance based?

A whole load of people! The reason is simple – you, the creditor. They have a slick sales funnel to attract people to use their services. They give descriptions of laws and processes to persuade you that you cannot do it on your own

These companies are fishing for as many deals as they can for their sausage machine. They put all the deals in at the front and let automation do its bit. Hey presto a debtor pays. They collect a hefty fee.

Are you frustrated that your debtor could use all the power of the internet, yet your options are limited? They are using all platforms fishing for new loans or investors or fee payers or whatever.

And all you or your agent can do is send a demand letter!

Do you believe that your debtor has got the money and just doesn’t want to pay you? You see them running about in fancy cars or going to nice restaurants. Even worse, you visit their social media only to find that they are on holiday somewhere awesome – with your money?

These people can pay, but won’t. Why?

Your collector/lawyer says they have taken their money offshore or you believe they have. Or should we say they have taken YOUR money offshore. Deposited in a country where it is difficult to get the money back.

How annoying!

What will your agent do for you? Probably very little without a lot of money.

Do you get frustrated when the debtor moves from place to place – county to county, state to state or even from country to country.  The response from you lawyer will be, that will cost.

Is it getting to the stage that you are tipping money into a black money hole?

Are you fed up with a big brother state that tells you how to collect your money? Whilst the non-payer can do what the hell they like. You ask your debt collector, solicitor or whoever – can’t you block this or do that. The answer is inevitably – that is not how it’s done, it’s up to us what we do.

You see your debtor doing stuff on the internet and you are not allowed to stop it or compete with it. It’s not fair.

You have located your debtor in another state, what can you do? How easy is it for your current debt collection business to suddenly operate out of their home state? How much is this going to add to your final settlement? 

Notwithstanding your jurisdiction, what happens when the “destitute” debtor (who has had your money) pleads in court that they have no money? The court will say you can’t get money out of a stone.

The court may allow the debtor to repay you at a nominal sum. That could take years to recover and the distinct possibility of the person/company defaulting again and again and again.