Collection Agency Articles
Do you want a free, no obligation debt collection agency services quote? Just complete the quick form to the left, and a top rated collections agency will provide you with a free collection quote ASAP.
If you are a collection agency author and would like to submit your collection agency articles, Click Here.
Collection Companies Need High Ethical Standards to Survive
Consumer credit is very nearly as big an issue in Japan as it is in the U.S. That's why the government in Tokyo is tightening Japanese regulations governing lending, and debt collection. It's even introducing legislation that will give consumers, and small businesses a statutory right to extend loan repayment periods.
As a result, Aiful Corporation, a consumer credit giant, lost more than a quarter of its market value on the Tokyo stock exchange last Friday.
Regulation Will Hit Collection Services Industry Profits
That regulatory ill wind is blowing across the Pacific, and across America, all the way to Washington D.C.
Federal and state legislators are scrambling to enact new laws that are going to affect collection companies' profits. These are not going to be minor inconveniences. They are not going to require a bit of tinkering with business processes, and tactics. They are likely to have a profound--maybe even devastating--impact on the collection services' sector's bottom line.
Collection Companies Complacent?
And yet the industry appears complacent. Beyond the odd pious press release, nobody seems to be out there, arguing the collection companies' case to the media.
Perhaps there's some top-secret plan to fund the re-election campaigns of every national and state politician in the country. But, if there is, it is not even slowing down the rush to regulate.
Collection Services Industry Needs More than PR, and Lobbying
Maybe the industry has given up the fight. In a way, that would be understandable. Who would want the job of persuading politicians and the American people of the fundamental truth that collection companies perform a difficult service that is indispensable to a healthy economy?
It's not that they wouldn't have a good basic story to tell. But every time they got onto a talk show, or had a face-to-face with a journalist or legislator, they'd have to defend whatever example of indefensible, unethical practice had emerged in that morning's headlines.
Until collection services clean up their own acts, the case for greater regulation is unanswerable.
Off Shoring By Collection Companies Doesn't Provide a Defense
The Los Angeles Times recently ran a feature about a call center in Islamabad, Pakistan that is employed to chase bad debts in America. According to Howard | Nassiri LLP, a firm of attorneys, the newspaper's interviews with call center staff revealed multiple examples of blatant breaches of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA).
Maryland Tells Collection Services Group to Cease and Desist
The L.A. Times story appeared in the same week that the Maryland Commissioner of Financial Regulation issued a 'cease and desist' order "... against a group of San Diego-based business entities alleged to have engaged in large-scale unlicensed and illegal collection activities in Maryland."
Arbiter of Bad Taste
Meanwhile, bad publicity surrounding the National Arbitration Forum (NAF) continues. Back in July, the Minnesota attorney general sued NAF, "…alleging that the company--which is named as the arbitrator of consumer disputes in tens of millions of credit card agreements--hid from the public its extensive ties to the collection industry. " The action was withdrawn when the two parties "reached an agreement that the company would get out of the business of arbitrating credit card and other consumer collection disputes."
But last week Milberg LLP, a New York-based law firm, filed a class action lawsuit against NAF, and related parties.
According to the attorneys, this: "... alleges that NAF has misled consumers for years… because it was owned by and/or beholden to a debt collection agency and debt collection law firm, such that in reality it was a debt collector, not a neutral forum for resolving disputes by the debt collection industry against consumers."
Collection Companies in Collective Denial?
Together, these stories suggest that the collection services business is in denial. Either that, or it has given up on the long-term future of the industry, and is trying to cash in as much as possible during some sort of pre-demise binge.
Which is ironic. Because it's precisely that sort of short-termism, and instant gratification mindset that got into trouble the very people whom collection companies chase.
Sources
- Wall Street Journal
- Los Angeles Times
- Howard | Nassiri LLP
- Maryland Commissioner of Financial Regulation
- Minnesota attorney general
- Milberg LLP
If you would like to add this collections agency article to your website, you must add the follwing code:
Collection Agency Article courtesy of / |
Here is the code you can just copy and paste: |
Get A Free Collection Agency Quote Now!
Collection Agency services can also go to Internet Business Funders and get a rate reduction quote for your credit card processor fees. See website for details!
