Published Friday, February 10, 2023 by Alan Holdren

Questions: When do I get my money on the collection accounts I have placed with you?

​ Do I have to stand in line behind everyone else chasing my debtors?

Two questions with two separate but conjoined answers. The first is sometimes a back loaded question that most of my customers initially having a thought or feeling they know. The answer to this is that you will be reimbursed by most collection agencies on a monthly basis along with a statement showing who was collected on. The second part of this question is the one that some guess at, but know one actually knows the truth. Some reps will guess maybe by experience within an industry, but trying to guess about bankruptcies, deaths and divorces, etc and claiming you have the definitive answer, should start picking lottery numbers if they feel they can predict these issues along with future payment trends. It will pay off better! Most accounts that we see success in show some form of life within 6 months of placement on out system, after that a hard-core skip tracing (location of debtors) program needs to be in place for some success to occur.

The second question posed above varies from agency to agency. Atlas uses the first in first paid system in the attempt to be fair to all of our clients. This encourages clients to not sit on accounts and get them placed before a debtor goes bad across the board. An exception to this rule is if a client is willing to pay court costs, they can jump the line a move into a priority position by investing your dollars into the accounts when the account does not met an agencies criteria for suit. Payments processed by agencies in house are simply applied to the oldest account unless the debtor specifies that the dollars go to a specific creditor. FDCPA (Fair Debt Collection Practices Act) allow for this provision and must be followed by all collection agencies to be compliant. Accounts that have judgments on them are in most courts paid along the same manner as to the judgment dates. Most courts only allow one garnishment at a time on a debtor and simply move down the ladder as one is paid off. Many judgments will contain multiple creditors in an effort by an agency to ration out court cost dollars that they pay to the court for their services.