Greatly Improve Business Debt Collection Efforts With Asset Investigations

One thing that's tougher than collecting business debt from a debtor is collecting business debt from a debtor who has insufficient or no assets left to repay the debt. It makes perfect business sense to figure out whether the debtor, or the defaulter, has enough assets-that-will-repay to make the whole collection exercise worthwhile.

Through assets investigations, commercial collection agencies, with the help of private investigators, can figure the quality and value of the defaulter's assets, as well as dig up the locations and liquidity-capability information on those assets.

In order to protect assets from being tracked and possibly sold to fund repayment of delinquent debt, many defaulters will remove their assets and transfer them to another name, or they may even enter into bankruptcy proceedings. Because of this, asset investigation exercises must be conducted.

These are the common tricks of the trade, but a creditor does not have adequate expertise to figure out these malicious tricks. It may also be that the defaulter has no assets left to repay, in which case the creditor may well be wasting good money on chasing bad money.

Commercial collection agencies use asset investigations to uncover the financial status and any asset stripping actions of a debtor, making the entire exercise essential to success.

What Do Asset Investigations Cover?

A commercial collection agency will hire a private investigator from its network to find:

- Bank accounts, including Certificates of Deposit, Safety Deposit Boxes and Money Market deposits.
- Addresses and employment information.
- Real estate ownership information.
- Ownership of professional and business licenses (to zero in on current occupation).
- Court history (civil and criminal).
- Advanced investigation, if required.

How Are Asset Investigations Carried Out?

Private investigators are hired by commercial collection agencies to keep an eye on court documents in case of filing bankruptcy.

Time is put into uncovering and analyzing consumer, credit, real estate records, and commercial accounts receivable data. While these are all public record, analysis and negotiation based on findings require expertise and experience.

The private investigator takes on the task of tracking address changes, court history, and contacting anyone who may have more information.

A borrower's actions are closely monitored and checked for questionable activity, such as asset stripping.

Because the collection agencies keep up a good rapport with local authorities and lawyers, they know how to work their way through the government systems and use this relationship to get useful information.

Advantages of An Asset Investigation

Aside from getting in all the information detailed above, the process is completed surprisingly quickly. Commercial collection agencies can present all the required assets' information in a couple of days at the most, thereby allowing the creditor to move fast. A fast mover always has more chance of recovering his debt.

If the defaulter has no assets with which to make repayment, it may be in the best interest of the creditor to drop collection attempts temporarily. The creditor will pay the nominal fee for the investigation and end the process. Because the assets that can be used to repay the debt are also uncovered, the creditor has all the information available prior to embarking upon a debt collection effort.

The amount of time and effort that commercial collection agencies help save companies are enormous. Key company personnel can focus on revenue-generation rather than chasing bad debt collection.

CFOs and CEOs of an organization that is saddled with a whole lot of bad debt must naturally be keen to collect these and infuse the much-required cash in the company. They must hire a commercial collection agency to conduct an assets' investigation and then take it from there.

And also, explore more important information and resources on commercial collection agencies, in addition to collection agencies options.

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