Published Friday, February 10, 2023 by Alan Holdren

Collection Agencies tend to classify their business into one of three categories and many such as ours does not work in all three areas based upon interest, expertise and profitability from past history.

The first is Business-to-Business collections. These are commonly classified as Commercial collections and are not governed by the FDCPA (Fair Debt Collection Practices Act), this gives agencies more room tactics to collect on this type of debt and not be constrained by the normal FDCPA rules. This would be the example of a Plumber collecting on an Apartment complex for non-payment of an invoice for plumbing work. Both parties are businesses thus it is classified as B-to-B or Commercial collections.

The second is Business to Personal and is the largest area that most agencies work within, mainly because it encompasses the medical type of accounts. The best example of this is a medical bill that is due after insurance has paid their portion and the patient is invoiced from the medical provider. The medical office is the business with the patient receiving the bill as the personal situation.

The last area that is where most of the highly disputed cases arise from is the Personal-to-Personal collections. These are situations many times where money or property was loaned or given in exchange for future payment or some type of consideration that was not lived up to by one party or the other. I get calls weekly of someone wanting to sue a friend or a relative on these types of cases. Most of the time is done through a verbal contract and no contracts were ever signed, making it, a he said she said situation. My group chooses to stay out of the arguments and refer them directly to attorney groups that will handle these on an hourly basis. Attorneys are best suited for these types of accounts.