Ive seen quite a few threads lately on this subject and I figured there might be interest in this. I worked as a licensed collector and collections manager for 7 years. I also owned a skiptracing company. I'm out of the industry now and am fully willing to give out some trade secrets

I'd be glad to answer any questions you guys have about this. There's a lot of lot of people that get taken advantage of by this and the legalities on this subject are very misunderstood.

what are the odds of admo getting his money back? and in what timeframes?

if I have a collections agency calling me what's the best way to get the price lowered.

Legally he doesnt have to pay him back if there wasnt a signed contract. Even at that he can claim he never signed it if there wasnt a notary witness.

Sadly I dont get into the 2+2'er drama posts anymore and I dont really know the people involved to make a claim that he'll pay him back or not. Ive been on here for a while and I think too many of these real life posts turn out very badly and can really screw up people's lives. I think people should re-evaluate whether its worth being one of the "popular posters" on here, and whether its worth dealing with scams and what I call "The Internet Poparatzi".

More on topic....I couldnt imagine giving someone that wasnt family 30K without a background and asset investigation first....and if he doesnt pay up, the only way he'd be able to MAYBE get his money back is if he can have posts on this forum and other messages used as evidence. But I dont think forum posts or IM messages can be used as a binding contract.

Average ROI of CC debt?

What rate do you typically buy debt at?

It depends on how old the debt is and what kind of debt it is. If its a medical bill you probably wont get offered a settlement since there's no interest to write off. Although most places offer a charity program or no interest loans to help pay this off.

If its a normal retail debt, call them up and tell them why you havent paid. You dont have to beg just let them know it got away from you and you just want to do the right thing and get it resolved. Tell them you dont have a lot of money and ask if you were able to raise XX% would they take that as a settlement.

if its a new debt...your looking at .80-.70 on the dollar (20-30% off)

if its relatively old they might take 40-50%

This is a good trick though...gather up as much money as you're willig to spend on the debt, or come up with a 2-3 month repayment plan, but wait until the 2nd to last or last day of the month to call them....if possible, try to call as late in the day as you can. The reason this works is because almost all 3rd party collectors work off commission and the commission cutoff is almost always 5pm on the last day of the month. That collector you're talking to is going to give you a better deal if you're giving him commission money on the last day of the month.

Seriously, when I was collecting we would freaking scramble in the last few hours of EOM and I would pull some just silly deals....Like there was one month were I settled a $10,000.00 account for like $900. I settled a 1.6 million dollar yacht defficiency balance for a little over 100K once...(that was a nice month) I lied my ass off to the creditor to get these deals....about how this was a charity case and that the debtor was dying, yadda yadda....point being they paid it and I got a whole lot more money on my check.


There is a catch though....your credit will only reflect "Settlement Paid" it will not say "Paid in full" and will still have a small negative effect on your credit.

Its silly....like 3-5% The rest is written off.

Although it is a fair price...because honestly, depending on the protfolio you buy and the way its collected, after 12 months its common to still have only collected 5% of that money collected...and plus most of these accounts that are bought are so old that all the information about the debtor is outdated and you have no way to reach them wthout skiptracing. Factor in the costs vs. return....youre maybe looking at 1-2% return your first year, 0.5-1% your 2nd, and by year three you wont be able to find the people that are left, or get any money out of the ones you do find.

Most agencies that buy paper instead of working out a deal with a bank are attorney firms that can sue without spending a lot of money.

this is an awesome thread. I almost want to get in debt so I can use these tips and tricks.

But that would be silly of me.

Very true...I'll help anyone get a FAIR deal. But I dont want people to get the wrong idea.... the people that just want to "steal" money from banks with no intention of paying it back should be put in jail.

Years ago, it used to be tabboo to even think about filing bankruptcy, now the national $ amount in bankruptcies is higher each year than our governments national debt. Its rare now NOT to know someone thats filed bankruptcy.

and sadly enough it's so easy to avoid....

I have about £2,000 of credit card debt - £1400 on one card (left over from a £3300 gambling binge in 2005, fortunately they suspended/vastly lowered interest and I've paid off more than half since), £600ish on another.

I just moved out of my old flat, and didn't tell the credit card companies since I don't have a permanent address yet.

I fully intend to pay this debt back, and in fact pay towards the larger debt by direct debit each month.

The other card, I think they've probably issued a default notice against me by now for being £120 over my limit, but I haven't picked up my mail so don't know. Once I've sorted out my accomodation and had a nice win online, I'll pay a chunk of it off.

But I just got thinking, since I have no intention to take a loan or buy a house in the next decade, why couldn't I just ignore the debt?

I mean, I don't have any possessions except for my laptop and bike, so even if they managed to find where I lived (and I won't be on the electoral roll or utility bills, which makes it a little harder for them), what could they do? I'll be in a furnished shared flat, so it's not like they could walk out with much.

Couldn't I just ignore the debt? I know that'd be a stupid thing to do over so small an amount, because they will just sell it to a collection company and keep adding charges, and one day when I do decide to face it I'll find it's suddenly become £5,000.

But.... don't a lot of people just say "**** it" and not bother paying credit card debt?

In my case the £1400 debt is with a sister company to my bank, so I clearly couldn't do a runner. But with the other one, I do sometimes wonder how easy it'd be.

One of the controllers at my courier firm says he gets his wages paid into his partner's account, because otherwise he'd have CC companies after him. So there are clearly ways round it, even if it's not worth bothering about for £2k.

What year did you pass the bar?

OP,

Interesting stuff so far.

Is it true that these agencies are largely populated by semi-transient, hard-partying people in their early-mid 20s? Work, go out partying every night, couldn't pass a drug test, etc. I imagine these offices to have fairly high turnover.

Also, I suspect that a collection agency once sent someone to my office under the guise of something totally different. It took a bit of putting pieces together to figure this out but I'm pretty sure they did. What was the reason that they would have done this, assuming I'm right?

Good stuff so far, Livinitup0 knows his stuff.

The bigger agencies drug test for sure. I had to give up partying for realz when I wanted to work for a more reputable collection agency. The smaller ones usually do not test because of the cost.

The collection industry does have a large turnover and the industry has an incestuous nature. Sometimes "lifer" collectors will go from agency to agency before ending up at the agency they started with. Collectors do tend to burn out.

In your friends case, they made a mistake. These things happen.

Sure you could ignore it. A lot of people do. You can easily live without credit.

Personally.... I think its trashy. Even before working in the collections industry I would feel too guilty not to pay my bills. If its a matter of you just CANT pay it back, there literally is no way to do so....I cant understand. Maybe bankrupycy is the best route. But this isnt your situation.

I had a guy once that owned a very successful contracting business. He bought a $250,000.00 RV, a huge house, credit cards for his shopaholic wife. His business went under, his wife left him (with the bills as well) and dude was looking at over $2,000,000.00 in debt, on top of monthly child support and alimony. The only job he was able to secure was a normal construction job that paid like $18 an hour. Not bad, but there is literally no way this guy is EVER going to be able to pay this back. The interest on his debts alone would be over 2k a month.

This is a situation I understand, and I actually recommended an attorney for this guy to file bankruptcy.

But then ive talked to countless people that literally screw creidt card and retail companies over and over again. They file bankruptcy every 7 years and try to get credit from anyone that will accept them with little intention of paying them back.

Hell Ive talked to illegal aliens that say that they come to America every 7 years to rack up debt and take the money/goods back to Mexico.... one guy literally told me "..you know, America...the land of everything's free right?"

Pay the bills dude....you can probably get them to settle for one decent upswing.

What do you mean?
If there wasnt a notary then either party could just say the other is lying. Theres no other evidence to back it up....I'll be honest I didnt have to work with a notary very often, and this is passed down information, but isnt that what notaries are for? A legal witness to some transaction or validation of documents?

I know theres some lawyer 2p2'ers out there so please step in if my info is wrong or outdated. I dont claim to be an attorney

Do you laugh at all the deadbeats on creditboards?

High turnover is an understatement....before I left there was 350 people on average in the whole company. We usually turned over 400+ a year....that's not an exaggeration. We were well over 100% turnaround every year.

And...if they sent someone to your office to investigate then you owe someone a hell of a lot of money. Ive never heard of this before and Ive worked on $2mil+ accounts. With a judgement and a phone your employer will tell me anything I want over the phone...no need for the high-end corporate james bond stuff.

Most agencies actually dont test to be honest. Turaround is too high for it to be worth it. Now there are sort of "high-end" places that do only corporate, legal super high dollar accounts that im sure require not only a drug test but an ethics and background check....its next to impossible to get in at one of these places though.

And yes collectors do burn out...I hate to say this, but "good" people... usually make horrible collectors unless they can truly leave their collector personality out of their home life. Its hard to do....me and my old boss can lie, cheat and basically legally steal better than anyone that ive ever met....all over a telephone. Honestly I dont think theres one GOOD collector that hasnt done some very bad things to people over the phone...whether its lying, threatening...hell even stalking.

This is no joke... the best employees I ever had ALL had been in prison for one thing or another. Con men.

It takes either a very uncaring attitude to do these things for a long time. Eventually most people end up hating the industry and never go back.

After a while it's not even funny anymore. When I was on the phone I would literally tune out most of what the person was saying....I was busy trying to think of a way to get them to part with money that they didnt have.

i'm guessing he's implying you need to be a lawyer to actually know the laws of your field of work. in other words, he's being a dbag to you.

how much can you make doing this stuff, if you were pretty good at it?

Fortunately in this work all you have to do is make people believe you. Most of the time it doesnt really matter if its true or not

In all honesty though, Id like to know if anything of what I was taught isnt true, if anyone has legal references to contridict me. It would be funny to see how many of these legal nuggets my boss made up.

**Another good rule for BS'ing:
Never say I don't know....and if you don't know....make up something good!

It depends on what you are collecting and who you are collecting for. If you are referring to buying debt you need a very cheap attorney to make anything worthwhile. Although I have often wondered about buying debt and reselling the whole portfolio for .25-.5% more than I paid as a passive, short term investment. It takes a lot of money though.

If you mean as a normal collector...My best collectors made 50-60K a year. In my area thats a really decent yearly salary. I've read about and met several though that make 6 figures.

Top collectors and managers can make 6 figures plus.

A new employee can expect 8-10 an hour, high performing veterans can make upwards of 30 bucks and hour, and all this is plus commision that can range from 5-25% of the fee the company makes. Example collect $1000 company makes $500 employee makes percentage of that $500.

FWIW not a guess, I been doing collections for almost 15years, and have done it at every level from collector to running a satellite office.