Your first move when your customer skips out on the bill

Every company has seen the scenario, the customer purchases a product or obtains services, then either does not pay, or writes a bad check, then skips town or simply ignores the company's phone calls. The company is now out of the money the customer owes them, if this happens enough times, the company can go out of business or it will have to raise prices, making all the other consumers pay. So what should a company do when a debtor skips out on a bill? First thing they must do is contact a national collection agency. The debt collection company has various ways of collecting a debt through their debt collector.

First thing the debt collector will do is find out where the person is, this can be done in a number of different ways, and the debt collection agency trains the collector on all the ways to do this. One way is to simply look in the phonebook, if they are not listed, they will locate credit card records, employment information and if none of that works, they will enlist the assistance of the internet. Any national collection agency has the know how to locate anyone nationwide, even if they do not want to be found. 

Once the debt collector finds the person they are looking for, it is time to make contact, this is generally done by phone. The debt collector, on behalf of the debt collection company will make a simple telephone call to the debtor and request the debt be paid in full. At this point, one of three things will happen, the debtor will pay the debt, the debtor will arrange payments to pay off the account or the debtor will refuse to pay the debt. The first two scenarios are the ones the debt collector and the company wish for, although it does not always happen. If the customer refuses to pay, the next step is to file a judgement against the consumer. In the judgement, the national collection agency will contact an attorney on behalf of the company and file a lawsuit in court. With this lawsuit, the debt collection company can retain a garnishment, which takes a portion of the debtors paychecks until the debt is paid in full. 

The only way the company is guaranteed to be paid for their services when a customer refuses to pay is to contact a national collection agency immediately. While it may take up to a year to be paid when a judgement is in effect, most cases do not turn out that way. Most of the time, consumers are concerned about their credit and when they hear the bill has been turned over to a debt collection company, they pay up right away.