Last week, we ran a press release under the headline “NY Statewide Coalition Urges Legislature to Curb ARM Industry Abuses.” The headline was nothing terribly out of the ordinary; the ARM industry is used to facing opposition from coalitions of concerned citizens and the like.

And to be honest, the content of the release was not startling. It was an announcement in support of new laws in New York that would make it harder for debt buyers to file suit against consumers. While the legislation is misguided, it should be expected that various consumer groups would support such a measure. The release mentioned a group called the New Yorkers for Responsible Lending coalition.

What is surprising, however, is the identity of the actual organization that distributed the release. The above-named coalition did not send it out. It was released by the New York chapter of the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP). This fact should be cause for concern to ARM professionals engaged in policy lobbying.

As far as special interest groups go, few have the clout and power of the AARP.  The group claims over 40 million members, and while they all have disparate voting affiliations, the pressure the group can bring to bear on lawmakers is enormous.

In my recollection, there has not been a more powerful membership group to align itself directly against the ARM industry.

The National Treasury Employees Unions, itself quite influential, successfully lobbied the IRS to drop private debt collection vendors from its recovery strategy. But the NTEU is nothing compared to the AARP.

The press release distributed by the group used anecdotal evidence culled from the experiences of two retirement-age New Yorkers to paint a terrible picture of the entire industry. So the group appears to be putting all of its PR might behind the effort.

Ultimately, this impacts regulations in just one state, albeit a rather large one. But it should be noted that an extremely formidable group has aligned directly against ARM interests and that further pressure of its kind may be forthcoming.

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Adel, IA — collector mentor, the credit and collection industry’s premier training aid, announced today that it has teamed up with insideARM.com to offer a weekly content series aimed at motivating and inspiring credit and collection professionals.

“The mission of collector mentor is to inspire, motivate, and educate members of the credit and collection industry, and delivering a recurring, simple challenge that supports our mission made The collector mentor Challenge an ideal fit,” said Gary Jensen, editor of collector mentor. “I’m personally very excited to have the opportunity to inject some positive energy into the industry, especially at the frontline level."

The collector mentor Challenge will explore a variety of topics including careers, personal growth, health, family and friends, and finances. To help readers get the most out of the program collector mentor has also made available two downloadable tools that participants can use to chart their progress and experiences.

“Similar initiatives have worked well in life coaching and business coaching programs, and we wanted to apply that model to the credit and collection industry,” said Jensen “I fully believe that participation in the The collector mentor Challenge will help industry professionals learn more about themselves, and in turn, lead them to greater levels of success and satisfaction in what they do, ultimately helping them close the gap between where they are and where they want to be.”

According to Michael Klozotsky, managing editor of insideARM.com, “The lion’s share of media coverage of the ARM industry is both aimed at the corporate level and often tinged with scorn. Given these common representations it’s easy to forget that collection agencies’ most valuable assets go home in the elevator each night and together form the largest class of industry personnel. A part of insideARM.com’s mission is to humanize debt collection work and illustrate its basic similarities to most other occupations in America. We are pleased to partner with collector mentor on a content series specifically developed for the people whose hard work drives this industry.”

For more details on The collector mentor Challenge, please visit www.collectormentor.com/thechallenge and http://www.insidearm.com/go/collector-challenge.

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Danny Duggan, played by Postlethwaite, runs a failing building contractors, and resorts to gangster tactics to keep the business afloat. However, with the bottom falling out of the building game, Duggan finds that playing at gangster is only fun when you're on the winning side. In this missing link between "The Black Stuff" and "Boys From the Black Stuff" - Pete Postlethwaite excels as the out of his depth Duggan and the piece has all the warmth and incisive writing you'd expect from Alan Bleasedale. Responding to success of "The Black Stuff", the BBC commissioned Bleasdale to expand each character into a separate drama. The first of these, The Muscle Market, featured Pete Postlethwaite replacing Calder as the owner of the building contractors, and Alison Steadman (secretary & mistress). It went out under the Play for Today banner in 1981.

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Among the main problems that most people and businesses have today is that of collecting the sales that they have made through credit and terms. While such a practice was meant to boost sales and revenue, collection becomes the main problem of concern once the allotted allowance for settlement has arrived. Most companies suffer from bad debts from their receivables and such is a risk once a business establishment approves sales on credit.

Due to these unfortunate events, people would emphasize largely on trying to collect the said receivables even if they would lapse the given grace period for settlement of dues. However in some instances, the supposed client are really incapable of settling their account and thus leaves a company to resort to either seeking legal assistance or for some, recorded as bad debts which add to losses that would be incurred by a company. The latter is of course the extreme recourse once all means for collection has been exhausted, including that of referring such matters towards debt collection agencies.

Resorting to Pro Collection Assistance

Probably the last of the alternatives that a company would have is that of seeking assistance from pro collection agencies to help offset the governing debt issues that any entity would find itself in. While this resolution would still garner significant losses for the company, the amount of loss that will evidently be incurred is lower than that of getting nothing at all in return. Certain percentage rates and commissions are among the overriding charges to be incurred since such fees serve as payments for availing of the service.

Comparing the expenses to be incurred in such a scenario would be compared to that of a company leaving the burden towards the hands of hired people in the finance or collections department. However, pro collection agencies are more adept to such scenarios, being aware of such problems and knowing the proper procedures to undertake. This also includes as far as handling the entire scenario in a legal aspect to which demand payment will suffice for erring people who refuse to settle their financial obligations with the organization that hired them.

Assessing the Rate of Expected Collection

For sure, the need to declare bad debts will be dramatically trimmed down. While there is no guarantee that such efforts would be able to remit all the outstanding obligations of endorsed past due accounts, getting a certain percentage over getting nothing at all is better for companies who want to manage their debt deficiencies.

The only factor that a company would put under consideration is the expenses to be incurred for the service. There are a lot of pro collection agencies known today and each would have different costs, depending on their level of expertise and track record. Either way, collecting the impending bad debts of an organization is the main point of concern. Maximizing all efforts to be able to get what is due is the main concern of anyone and large scale organizations are no exceptions.

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ACA International is continuing to work with a broad coalition of interested industries and trade associations to convince the FCC to revise its proposed rule implementing the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).

The proposed rule requires a consumer's written consent, accompanied by extensive disclosures, before a business may use an autodialer or prerecorded message to place a non-telemarketing call to a wireless number that the called party has provided to the business as a contact number. The proposed rule reverses two decades of Commission guidance, on which American businesses in all industries and segments of the economy have relied.

At the conclusion of the initial public comment period, which ended on May 21, over thirty-five associations and individual businesses submitted comments opposing the FCC proposed rule. Alongside these comments, over 1700 ACA members submitted comments to the FCC supporting our comments and opposing the FCC proposed rule. This popular support for ACA's position indicates the broad-based appeal of our proposals and strongly demonstrates the need for the FCC to modify its rule.

In addition, the Federal Reserve and Departments of Education and Treasury filed comments opposing the proposed FCC rule. Each of these entities shared many of the same concerns voiced by ACA's coalition, which include the difficulty to collect outstanding debts when creditors are unable to contact consumers regarding their payments. This kind of statement of disapproval within the government is a strong signal to the FCC that their efforts to protect consumers are misguided.

Associations within ACA's coalition submitted an ex parte letter to the FCC highlighting the proposed rule's restriction on businesses sending valuable, non-telemarketing messages to the increasing numbers of consumers who have agreed to be contacted at wireless devices. This is an important issue within the FCC proposed rule, and ACA is dedicated to work with other concerned associations and companies to ensure this rule is never enacted.

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There would always come a point in someone's life that he would need to be assisted by someone else, most of the time emotionally, then physically and of course financially. Know that these scenarios is quite typical especially if one hasn't established a firm foundation yet, something that he could be sure to support him all through out his endeavors.

When one means endeavor it would always be interrelated to a demand laying out of money to back up this field and more often than not if you're not as rich as Bill Gates or Oprah Winfrey or some other top grossing personalities you'd need to settle for having a loan from certain money lending agencies.

Because of the fact that these lending agencies have been a prevalent option, it gave birth to such debt collecting agencies. Most of these collection agencies act as the agents of the creditors who'd collect owed debts on a habitual basis. If you'd try to realize the nature of the business it would boil down how tough the task is especially with the growing irresponsibility of the borrowers nowadays.

That's why some agencies undertake the option of harassing their clients or coercion, but since this is an evident violation of the debtors rights the state implemented specific laws that prohibit such abusive activities. Despite the complications of the task there would always be more effective means than engaging to these practices that might shut down their business.

First on the list, is keeping an eye on the negligent clients for them to lessen the job of leaving them unattended since they are the ones who would entail much attention due to their bad habit. Next is to concentrate on those delinquent payers and categorize them according to age and to the amount owed, usually the ones with higher debt and older ones are given much attention since they are the more responsible for their liabilities.

There should also be a strategy on how you would collect the owed debts so as not to lose track. Typically the collectors tend to be very considerate at first but of course desperate situations call for desperate measures they later on resolve to aggressiveness as the client becomes more inclined to their habit.

Settle for the usual measures by mailing the customers once or twice and if the customer still fails to respond you might want to follow up by phone. The letter itself should contain a firm condition for them to understand that as a collector you are dead serious in getting what they owe. For the record, you might want to take note of all your efforts, your phone calls the dates when you sent the letters so as to have something to provide if in case worst comes to worse.

Perhaps, if the customers still appear to be indifferent of your concern you could do your last resolve by reporting them to the credit agency that would eventually make them realize that their delinquency affected their credit capability for good.

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This publication discusses an uncomfortable but urgent subject: The intimidation of debtors by collection agencies. Owing debt does not entitle collection agencies to bully people and violate the law. "Stop the Calls: Guerrilla Tactics to Fight Back Bill Collectors" educates debtors about their rights and remedies against collection agency tactics.

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AFNI Inc., otherwise known as Anderson Financial Network, is a collection agency based out of Bloomington, Illinois. One of their biggest clients is Verizon. Besides their shady and harassing debt collecting tactics, AFNI is known to try to illegally collect on accounts that date back to the early 1990’s. Such accounts are past the statute of limitations and are not legally collectible anymore.

If you get a letter from AFNI beware of this illegal scam. Also, if they try to report the account on your credit report, it is also illegal. In fact, each listing on your credit report is worth a $1,000 fine. To read more about debt collection laws and how you can stop collection agencies from harassing you, grab a copy of the FDCPA (Fair Debt Collection Practices Act).

Junk debt buyers such as AFNI Inc, pay pennies on the dollar for debts. Then, they intimidate, threaten and harass unsophisticated consumers. From false threats of legal actions to constant calling and even calling consumers relatives and calling their workplace, AFNI is amongst the lowest of the low.

Consumers are urged to demand validation of all debts from a bottom feeder because the majority of them have nothing to back up their claims. By demanding debt validation, you are utilizing your rights under the FDCPA to make the collection agency prove that they own your debt. It's not enough for them to send you an itemized statement or printout of the debt.

Here’s what it states in the FDCPA - Section 809 - Validation of debts [15 USC 1692g]:

(b) If the consumer notifies the debt collector in writing within the thirty-day period described in subsection (a) that the debt, or any portion thereof, is disputed, or that the consumer requests the name and address of the original creditor, the debt collector shall cease collection of the debt, or any disputed portion thereof, until the debt collector obtains verification of the debt or any copy of a judgment, or the name and address of the original creditor, and a copy of such verification or judgment, or name and address of the original creditor, is mailed to the consumer by the debt collector.

If a collection agency can't verify a debt they are not allowed to collect or contact you about the debt. They are also not allowed to report it to the credit bureaus under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). Doing so is a violation of the FCRA, and the FCRA states that you can sue for $1,000 in damages for any violation of the Act.

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