What Can You Expect From The Best Collection Agency?

Both the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission point to debt collection agencies as businesses that tend to receive the most complaints from consumers. This is hardly surprising, as many individuals have less than positive experiences when dealing with debt collectors.

However, this unfair (though not entirely without precedent) reputation of the debt collection industry is due to the bad apples. Though not the overwhelming majority, there are debt collection firms that do a great job and don’t give negative experiences to even the people they collect from. A distinction must be made between the best collection agencyand the cheap, fly by night firms that try to collect even if it transgresses ethics and legislation.

But first things first, we have to understand what exactly is a business collection agency. A company that has uncollected receivables can forward the accounts to a debt collection agency, which in turn will try to collect on the outstanding debts on behalf of the original company. Some debt collection agencies do this in exchange for a commission on the collected debts, while there are also agencies who get paid a fixed fee outside of the collected money. There are also those who function somewhere in the middle, where they get a retainer’s fee and a commission for every debt they manage to collect.

When trying to collect, a collection agency will usually do two major things: contact you, and place the entry on your credit report. Contacting you will be through different channels, depending on their availability or convenience. Some collectors use voice calls, others send snail mail, and others rely on online means such as email. Some will even call your place of employment, if you give your work phone to the original company and gave permission to receive calls. 

This may seem surprising to many individuals, but collection agencies are legally allowed to show up at a person’s home in order to collect a debt. What they are not allowed to do is pretend that they represent a federal agency or use said agency’s name in an effort to harass a person. Basically, they can show up at your house, state that they represent the relevant company, and ask you to settle the debt. They cannot show up at your house and say that they came from the IRS, nor can they show up and threaten to arrest you.

Debt collectors may also call you multiple times during the day if you are dodging their calls, but they almost always tend to follow office hours for their normal calls, such as any hours between 9AM to 9PM. Debt collectors may also call your friends or work colleagues, but this is only to verify if they have the correct number or address. They are not allowed to harass your friends and loved ones, and the right commercial collection agency make it a point to avoid these unethical practices. 

At the end of the day, the reason why debt collectors get a bad rap is that the bad apples tend to give the whole industry a bad name, which is a travesty as the collectors that resort to harassment and unethical practices have very low success rates, so end up wasting the money and time of their clients. It is up to companies to hire only the best collection agency and pretend the subpar ones from flourishing in the industry

Joan Geller is a debt collector who has been working in the industry for more than 10 years now. She believes that companies and the people who have outstanding debts to them will both benefit if everyone knew about business collection agency options and what the best collection agency is.