Welcome to Debt Collection Guide
Debt Collection Improvement Act Of 1996 Article
. For a permanent link or to bookmark this article for further reading, click here.
Dealing with Skip Tracers and Debt Collection
One of the biggest problems that debt collectors face is locating their debtors. When a debtor moves to another house in another state, the collection agency often has no clue how to locate him. So, how do collection agencies track runaway debtors? The solution is easy – they hire skip tracers.
Skip tracers are people whose sole mission is to locate debtors who moved without giving their new contact details to the collection agencies. Sometimes, skip tracers are employed to help legal collectors find the addresses of assets that are to be repossessed.
You may wonder how skip tracers locate people. The process is actually rather straightforward. The easiest way is to use the debtors’ social security numbers. They run the social security numbers through various credit bureaus. What they get are header files from the debtors’ credit files or credit reports. A header file only has basic information like the name, address and in some cases, the place of employment. As little as this information may be, it’s all that the skip tracers need to help debt collectors find their debtors.
If the skip tracer cannot find the debtor through the social security number, he can do a national identifier search. Simply put, this is an old school system that uses the debtor’s last known residence as well as his name to find his new location.
The skip tracer may look through these sources:
Phone book
Online directories and search engines – The debtor may have accounts in various websites, like myspace, livejournal or facebook. If not, there may be people on the internet who may have written entries about him or posted his pictures.
The Department of Motor Vehicles
If the debtor drives or has a license, it is likely that the DMV has recent information about his whereabouts.
Employers
If you know the debtor’s last place of employment, the skip tracer can approach his boss and inquire about his current employment status. Even if the debtor has moved to a different job, the employer may still have information that can help the skip tracer locate him.
Associations and other groups
If the debtor has a specialized occupation, like Engineering or Medicine, he must have membership in certain organizations. The skip tracer will try to search through these groups to find the debtor.
Former contacts
The skip tracer may visit old neighbors, friends and relatives to get some information about the debtor’s current location.
When trying to get information about a certain debtor, a skip tracer faces a lot of potential legal troubles. In order to prevent these, the skip tracer should not falsely represent himself as a member of law enforcement or a detective. Also, the skip tracer may experience legal troubles if he tries to get the cell phone numbers of the debtors.
Debt Collection Improvement Act Of 1996 Specific links
Debt Collection Improvement Act Of 1996 News
Accretive Responds to Attorney General, Al Franken - InsideARM
 InsideARM | Accretive Responds to Attorney General, Al Franken InsideARM Did Accretive employees request payment or attempt to collect past debts from Fairview patients before they received medical treatment? “Informing patients of prior balances at the time of registration is consistent with the 'recommended practices' ... |
Portfolio Recovery Associates Reports First Quarter 2012 Results - MarketWatch (press release)
Portfolio Recovery Associates Reports First Quarter 2012 Results MarketWatch (press release) Total cash collections increased 31% year-over-year, as we added new consumer debt and bankrupt customer portfolios of $111.4 million this quarter," Fredrickson said. "Revenue from our fee-for-service businesses slightly improved year-over-year, ... |
Berkeley County officials disagree on how to spend fees from industries - Charleston Post Courier
Berkeley County officials disagree on how to spend fees from industries Charleston Post Courier “I don't think people know that so far we've collected about $15 million from (the Mount Holly Commerce Park, where Google is located), and not one dime has ever made it to the school system,” said County Councilman Tim Callanan. |
Jabil Circuit's CEO Hosts 2012 Analyst Meeting (Transcript) - Seeking Alpha
Jabil Circuit's CEO Hosts 2012 Analyst Meeting (Transcript) Seeking Alpha This company was founded in 1996 and flew under the radar screen for a long time but I think that's probably predates ONK. Not really sure about that but we certainly have out survived SCI. Thanks everybody for coming here today. |
International Tax Controversy - April 2012 - JD Supra (press release)
International Tax Controversy - April 2012 JD Supra (press release) The first type of protection, the attorney-client privilege, seeks to “protect not only the giving of professional advice to those who can act on it but also the giving of information to the lawyer to enable him to give sound and informed advice. |