Debt Consolidator Now

You should call in a credit collection agency sooner rather than later. The longer you wait to begin the collection process on overdue accounts, the less of a chance you’ll have at recovering your money.

The day after an account becomes overdue, you should place a polite phone call to the customer who owes you money. If that doesn’t work, you may want to send a few reminder letters yourself, or you may want to go directly to a credit collection agency. Base your decision on how much money is owed to you and the history of your relationship with the customer. If it’s the first time you are doing business with them, you’ll want to call in a credit collection agency sooner than you would with a 10-year old customer with a solid credit history.

Most companies call in a credit collection agency once a debt is 60 days to 90 days past due. If you wait much longer than 90 days to begin recovering unpaid receivables, your chance of collecting drops dramatically.

If you discover that your account has gone out of business, find out what type of business it was – a corporation, a partnership, or a proprietorship. If it was a corporation, don’t even bother calling for the help of a collection agency. It is doubtful that you, or any one else, will be able to squeeze the last few nickels out of that client. If the company is a partnership or a proprietorship, you may be able to get the individual owners of the company to pay you out of their own pockets.

If you try to recover an account and fail, consider that loss a tax-deductible item (Tax Code IRC 166, Reg. 1.166). You will be able to deduct the cost of the goods sold (but not paid for) as an ordinary business expense. You can’t deduct any lost profits from the sale, nor can you deduct the money owed for services rendered.

Mallory Megan works for a debt collection agency. She also writes articlesabout finance and business, consumer spending and collection agencies.

Recently the CARD act went into effect, which means that consumers will be able to enjoy relief from double cycle billing and arbitrary rate increases. The CARD act also promises that credit card bills will be much easier to read. However, with the new act comes a new series of rules and regulations that savvy consumers should know about.

First, it is very possible that cardholders might find that they are being hit with an assortment of charges and new fees. This is because creditors have already been implementing new fees aggressively or raising ones that already existed to try to make up for any revenue that could be potential lost as a result of the CARD Act.

Some types of these fees are Discover’s new 2% fee on all purchases made outside of the United States of America, and an increase from 3% to 5% fee for rolling over a balance from one credit card to another.Because there are no restrictions on the types of fees creditors can implement, cardholders should pay extra close attention to the “Terms and Conditions” section of their statement so they know what exactly they are being charged for.

In addition, credit will be harder to come by. The amount of credit that was available to consumers by card companies went down about 7% between March and September of last year. And it will only tighten further. According to the CARD Act, credit card companies are going to be extremely restricted in their marketing techniques that target college students, which can potentially cut down on an important part of their business.

So, consumers with a mediocre or bad credit history will find that it is much more difficult to obtain a card or have their credit limit extended.

Fewer rewards are also expected. Issuers are becoming more cheap with their benefits in an attempt to save money. For example, American Express recently told its consumers that they would not be able to accumulate reward points on their purchases if they were late with a payment. To avoid missing out, analysts caution that cardholders should carefully read any notices they get from their credit card company about changes to their rewards or loyalty program.

Mallory McGuinness works for a debt collection agency. She also does articles on business, finance, consumer spending, and debt collection.

On November First of 2009, financial institutions and other creditors were ordered to comply with the Red Flag provisions of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003. The purpose of the Red Flag rules is to mitigate and prevent identity theft. Identity theft could be defined as any fraud involving people getting particular benefits by pretending to be someone else.

Broad in scope, the Red Flag rules define financial institutions as any organization engaged in insurance, banking, or similar activities, and a number of the definitions come with the breathing room to expand compliance demands. Any consumer account involving multiple payments or transactions that is offered to these organizations can potentially be subject to the rules.

The rules in a nutshell state that any financial institution or creditor that might be subject to a reasonable and foreseeable risk of identity theft should master an identity theft prevention program in order to remain in compliance. These programs should include identification on any activity that may be seen as identity theft. They should pursue red flags that have already been identified, and should take action to prevent and mitigate theft. Finally, period review and updating of red flags are necessary to comply with the Red Flag provisions.

Also, the Red Flag provisions mandate that an institution’s identity theft prevention program will be managed and written by senior company management. Training and overseeing this service are required.

Identity theft is a destructive and expensive issue; business and consumer losses came to about $56.6 billion in 2005 alone. But when you consider just how harmful identity theft can be to a business, not complying with these regulations can be even more expensive and harmful. Potential losses, costly investigations, regulatory fines and potential lawsuits are all negative consequences of non-compliance. It seems as though their best bet is to follow the rules.

Mallory Megan works for a debt collection agency. Also, she writes stories on business and finance, the credit industry and debt collection.