Collecting Bad Debts

HI

Our company have several bad debts which are several years old. We don't think we can collect them via the regular debt collection services. In the past I've heard of debt collection agencies who are very agressive and apart from sending letters, actually send people around knocking on doors trying to collect the debts. They do keep about 25 or 30% of any outstanding debt they collect.

Does anyone know of such an agency or comany?

thanks for any advice.

?

It depends what they owe you for, I have terms and conditions on my invoices that state that the company reserves the right to reposses goods unpaid for or items to their value. Don;t know the legalty of it but I've often threated to come down and remove items I've fitted and it usually provokes a bit of discussion.....

Also it might be no harm to call to them in person, legally you can only look for a bad debt during working hours but I know of others who look for money at inconvient times just to let them know you havn;t forgotton about them.

I know it all sounds a bit bullying and you might be afraid of getting a hard name but the thing is there's no point working for someone if they think they can get away with leaving you on the long finger. You're better off without that kind of trade....

I have come across it for many years and I never know that you couldn't try and collect a bad debt after working hours. Most of the people that I would neeed to collect from would be at work then.
I find the best approch is to call to the company or private person, it is very hard to ignore someone when they are stood infront of you. Last year a resturante owner waa very slow to pay the last part of a bill so I called there at 1 in the morning as he was counting the days takings. His face was a picture and he paid.

Persistence and in person, has always worked for me.

i have engaged some of these so called debt collectors what i found was once they collected there commision they didn care about the debt anymore
in fact one company promised this that and other ,i paid there fee monthly by direct debit they were to collect 30k for me i paid them about 2k they collected in €1300 and tried to sue us then for the commision on what they didn collect! Total waste of time ,call personally to your customers you may find they are in difficulty ,work out a scheme of payment it often works out
and they will in turn be a good loyal customer in the future