That philosophy is why most of the people who are in my inventory are lawyers. They also represent the one profession who owe the most in federal and state taxes. I always heard a sob story when I either asked them to file missing tax returns, pay estimated taxes or to pay on back taxes. This hack has never analyzed how much it takes to collect one item. If this was ever done correctly, he would be chasing an abulance. To be perfectly honest, most attorneys suck in business.
I've read your posts on the cost benefit analysis of collections and you make good points which I agree with in part. The sentiment on the referenced site, however, is probably the norm. A
I'd be interested in a link to that site and thread. It would be interesting to see what the collectors say to each other about this. After all, in many cases it would be throwing good money after bad.
Fly, Here's the link http://debtcollectionlawyer.blogspot.com/2006/08/universal-myth-size-does-matter.html
Somehow I don't think this post is the comments of a major player in the collections field, but instead is the rant of a single person who may or may not even be a collection lawyer. Fist of all, the blog got only one response, and it was relatively unrelated to the topic of the blog altogether. Second, no one at insideARM picked up on it. That would be one of the first places some discussion of this topic would go, since it is heavily populated by collectors and collection attorneys. Third, it ignores the obvious - that it costs money to sue, and even a debtor with assets can position those assets to be out of the reach of collectors, even collectors armed with judgments. The facts that collectors and their attorneys are fully aware of is that when suing, if you are not assured a recovery, you may very well be throwing good money after bad. The simplicity of the argument - find some assets and sue regardless of the size of the debt - seems to fly in the face of the actions of all the major players in the collection business - collectors and attorneys included.
Trust me, I know the throwing away of good money after bad. Let me give you an example. I have a person who paid for their kid's daycare with 5 nsf checks. I check the accurint report, and see that this person is not working, in fact, this person is on SSI. Each check by the way is for $250. I call the bank, and find out that the account is overdrawn or closed. Even though the checks with treble damages could possibly be over $5k, what is the point. We will never see any money from this person, because to honest about it, their income is not subject to levy. Here is a heads-up, monies that are deposited into a bank account that are either from disability, veteran's compensation, and social security are not subject to a bank levy. I found this out the hard way, when submitting a levy on a joint bank account and the spouse was receiving soc sec, I will find the CCP for this statute and post it. (This is in California by the way) Therefore, when I determine viability, I look for the feasibility of collecting. As I stated before, I have judgments that are 15 yrs old and we have never received anything on them. Remember, a judgment is enforceable where is was entered, therefore, if a person moves out of state, a CA can't collect on it unless the state the person moves to recognize the judgment. That is the reason why 30% of our judgments are just languishing.
Collector2- What you posted agrees with my experience as a Collector from over 25 years ago. Things haven't changed since then, except I was pre-FDCPA so I could get away with a lot more than collectors today can (especially with people like me on the Internet). Foreign (meaning out of State) Judgments can be domesticated in the debtor's new state of residence, but that entails throwing even MORE good money after the bad. The point of my post was that the collector/attorney who posted that Blog was probably doing little more than posturing - not stating the facts - just trying to scare people into thinking "If I have a job I am guaranteed to get sued no matter how small the debt". You and I (and a lot of other people) know that is far from the truth. But... posting the BS on an Internet Blog, no matter how deep the BS, is not actionable under FDCPA. But I bet it felt good for the Collector to say it.
I have a few judgments on accounts in the State of GA. One of the debtors has a bank account in CA and DC, with no branch locations in GA. While CA was quiet expensive to file a sister state judgment, the court added the fee bank on to what the debtor owed, and 1 hit on her bank account easily paid that fee plus much more. I do agree that it is expensive thought to follow the debtor, and most companies wont do it.
