In article one in this three piece series on the very basics of debt collection, I wrote about the differences between third party debt collectors and in house debt collectors. But no matter what entity or institution they work for, the goals of debt collectors are the same. First, they need to find the people or businesses that owe the debt, and inform them that they are delinquent in their payments. Generally, debt collectors will reach a debtor over the phone, but they are known to send mail as well.
The people who owe the money are known as debtors, or consumers, and often times they might move without leaving a forwarding address or appropriate phone number. Sometimes this is done on purpose to avoid being contacted by the debt collectors, other times this is just a mistake. In these cases, the collection agents might check with telephone companies, the post office, credit bureaus, and former neighbors to get the new address.
If a collection agent gets a hold of a consumer’s neighbor, they are strictly banned from letting that neighbor know why they need the number, and are not allowed to reveal that the consumer owes a debt. The process of tracking down a debtor’s new address or phone number is called “skip tracing.” Collection agents will utilize computer systems to track when debtors or companies change their contact information on any of their open accounts automatically.
As soon as the collection agents locate the consumers they will get in touch with them to let them know about overdue accounts and to request a payment. Debt collectors generally call from 1-800 numbers and must verify that they are speaking with you before they can proceed. If anyone else picks up the phone, they cannot inform them of your debt, all they can do is ask that you call them back at such and such number.
If a collection agent does get in contact with a debtor, and verifies that they are speaking with them, they will let them know their name, the details of their overdue accounts, and that this is an attempt to collect and anything said in this conversation may be used for the purposes of collection. To Be Continued In Part Three.
Mallory Megan works for Rapid Recovery Solution and writes articles on medical collection agencies. This article, The Very Basics Of Debt Collecting Part Two is released under a creative commons attribution licence.