Collecting Florida Debts is No Day at the Beach

Jeffrey J. Needle, Esquire - 10/24/2011 - In 1989 I collected my first debt for another person.  My client was a lawyer who performed services and was owed money based on a contract.  After calling the debtor and making arrangements to personally appear and obtain payment, I did just that.  If collecting debts were only that easy today it would be like a day at the beach.  With a distressed economy, depressed real estate market, increased unemployment and lower sales being reported by just about every industry, collecting debts has become a very complicated endeavor.

For many years, business owners could borrow against lines of credit or in some cases take home equity loans to satisfy debts that their business could not pay within the scope of the credit terms that they had been granted.  Personal guarantors were not being foreclosed on and business owners could take second jobs to help supplement the business income because there were many job opportunities available.

My experience in the collection industry has taught me that you have to care about your clients first and foremost, not industry models or ego driven quotas.  Greed can be a healthy motivator, but can also become a disastrous character defect if your objective is not clearly defined.  I pride myself on keeping clients happy with relationships as well as results.  Our staff and resources have always been structured like a helix; we can contract and expand based on client’s needs.  The likelihood of recovery can no better be determined by an industry model than it can be a Magic 8 ball we all played with as kids.  There are no tell-all crystal balls, just good old fashion follow through.    

By definition we are a law firm and a collection agency, offering both avenues of recovery for clients with seamless transitions from outbound calls and demand letters to immediate service of process of the complaint for damages.  A client once said to me “I wish I did not have to know of you, but I feel better being able to focus on my sales knowing that you are always there…”  I took that to heart and my ego wanted every client to love having me around like this client did.

Technology has allowed our firm to handle matters throughout the entire state of Florida without the increased costs formerly associated with such an undertaking.  Cooperative sharing of results, decisions, case law and trends amongst other collection lawyers has allowed me as an attorney to better prepare for certain venues or judges and  communicate to the client the hurdles and potential successes that accompany a collection campaign that involves litigation.   The fact that we are a law firm clearly implies that litigation is always available to us should the claim require it so debtors tend to take our demands far more seriously and contact is usually made soon after the initial demand is made upon the debtor.  

I have found it necessary to explain to all clients that they must be reasonable.  Do not expect miracles, this is not an easy process.  If the customer who became a debtor was going to pay without a fuss, he would have.  Sometimes it takes months even years to collect a debt and sometimes it requires litigation.

If you don’t do your own business taxes, then you should not handle your own business collections; it’s no day at the beach.