Recommendations for Collection Agencies

The Steam Whisperer

I have been reviewing my current agency's success and its dismal...Paid about $1800.00 in fees and collected $800.00. They have about $8,000.00 of delinquent accounts with no collections.

Smaller accounts go the collection agency On bigger amounts the accounts directly to my attorney.

Any recommendations....

Mad Dog_2

Yes...send Tough Tony over to talk some sense in to them paying you.  Ha ha.  It always used to work!!  Mad Dog

JUGHNE

Would filing a mechanic's lien on the property do anything for you?

Here it has to be done within a certain time frame.

Mad Dog_2

What kind of relationship did you have with the client? History?  Sometimes people are holding back $$ as insurance, sometimes they REALLY are broke, and sometimes they are just low lives.  You are at the very least owed an explanation. Then, make your next move from there.   Mad Dog 

The Steam Whisperer

Most of them are the type that never return any calls, or on the rare occasion they do pick up the phone after being contacted when the bill is 5 months past due , they try to negociate with some story why they shouldn't pay because they didn't like the tech or other nonsense. Of course they never called us about this prior to our contacting them. About half live in nice homes in suburban like communities (often owning properties is not so affluent areas). Those that are broke and they know it I can understand... regular working class folks...that are trying to survive at the U.S. Median household income of around $35,000/year. It appears that most of them, both suburban types and others, are simply playing the system. They run up bills that are not enough to make it cost effective to go after them legally. We had one that had us come in and do a bunch of system repairs, then turn around and filed backruptcy, then hired another company we work with to replace the boiler. Apparently they didn't know that debts created after filing bankruptcy are not forgiven. The contractor has now filed to take possession of the home. Another common theme among these delinquent or slow pay accounts are professional property manager owned buildings and owner's in the most affluent neighborhoods.

It is interesting to see the distinct patterns of problem accounts. We now know what neighborhoods to not work in....all of them are affluent areas.... to help keep the problem accounts to a minimum.