Collection Agency Near Me: Does the location matter?

Are you a Small Business owner or a Medical Practitioner, searching for a Collection Agency near you? 

You are not alone, there is a common misconception that a local collection agency will be more effective, provide a better service or somehow recover more money from your debtors, verses the one located on the other coast of the country. Not True. 

FACT: Location of a Collection Agency does not matter.

Hiring a collection agency is very different from hiring a plumber, cleaner or mover.

• You will never visit a Collection Agency’s office to submit accounts, instead you will submit accounts on their secure website right from your home or office.
• Similarly, a local Debt Collector will never personally go to your debtor’s house to collect money. Then why restrict yourself to hire a Collections Agency near your office?
• Have you ever cared to check if your own bills like utility or insurance bill were generated locally or from a different city. You don’t. Similarly debtors don’t care if demands to make payment originate from a local agency or from an agency located elsewhere.

Genuine Advice: Stop searching for a “Collection Agency Near Me“. 

THUMB RULE: Go for a better collection agency, not the one closest to you.

Contact us and we will connect you to a good Collection Agency which has experience in you industry, higher recovery rates and fully licensed to collect money in your state. 

If a collection agency covers all 50 states, its ideal. It really does not matter if a Collection Call or a Collection Letter to your debtor originates from your own city, verses from New York or San Francisco. Only the legal compliance, recovery rate and cost-effectiveness of those services matter. 

How to select a Collections Agency for your Small Business? It is more important to hire a collection agency with higher recovery rates than its peers.  Ensure that they are sufficiently insured for your protection, in case there is a dispute or a lawsuit from the debtor’s side during the collections process, you are protected. Preferably licenced to collect in all 50 states. The one which hires top of the line debt collectors. You would be sharing a lot of personal information of your debtors. Are you sure the agency closest to you handles that data securely. What would happen if that data gets stolen, your small business or medical practice can actually land up in a huge trouble. Therefore the first thing is to ask if they have adequate security procedures and well audited certifications. That the agency has been in business for minimum 5 to 10 years. What is the experience of their management and debt collectors? What is their collection fees? Could there be any hidden fees? The collection agency near you may be charging a higher fee even though they may have an inferior recovery rate.  Do they offer collections in both English and Spanish? Do they sincerely follow all federal and state laws like the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). They offer more products than just contingency based Collection Calls. Do they offer a cheaper 1st and 3rd party Collection Letters option, suitable for accounts less than 120 days old? How important is it for you to have all their debt collectors based in USA? If so ask them. Do they send collection letters in plain “Black & White” print or a more attention grabbing “Colored Prints”. A good collection agency may possibly charge 10%-15% more, because they have better resources and far better collection rates.  Collection agency should also do several “scrubs” like – Change of Address, Bankruptcy Check and Litigious Debtor Check, without charging you anything extra. It should be a part of their standard collection process. If you use Collection Letters service, it requires accounts to be purchased in advance. What happens if there are any unused accounts? Do they have an expiration date for them? Some good collection agencies allow you to use these unused accounts for many years, instead of forfeiting them after 6 months or 2 years. Do they have a secure online portal to enable you to submit new accounts for collections, run real time performance reports and stop collections on an accounts after a payment has been received. The list goes on…

Therefore, if you are searching for a “Collection Agency near me” then you may be making a mistake. You are not alone, in-fact many small businesses have this natural tendency. All that matters is whether or not a Debt Collection Agency is licenced to collect in your state or not.

Only time a local presence matters is when the accounts gets transferred for legal collections, because a legal suit against the debtor will be filed in the local court, depending on your jurisdiction or county. But, the good news is that almost all good Collection Agencies have a nationwide network of attorneys and their fee is usually the same if you were to go through a Collection Agency or approach them directly. In fact, since Collection Agencies regularly transfer their accounts to local lawyers near you, they are likely to act more seriously when a Collection Agency is involved because it impacts their future business as well.

Hope this article was helpful, regardless you are located in New Jersey  or California 😊.

If you need a good Collection Agency, contact us, we can refer you to a few good ones based on our knowledge and experience at no cost to you.