Like Repossession Lots, Debt Collectors oftentimes get a bad rap. As the public face of a genuinely uncomfortable and unfortunate situation, debt collectors are right up there with used car salesmen and personal injury lawyers--necessary professions that everybody loves to hate.
But, beyond the rough stereotype, debt collectors do sometimes engage in unprofessional, unkind, and occasionally illegal behavior.
This is why Debt Collector Networks exist. Debt Collector Networks—such as Acumen Solutions, Ad Astra Recovery Systems, and Automated Collection Services Inc—provide institutions with a vetted group of federally compliant debt collectors across the country and around the world. This helps companies perform their due diligence to ensure that the individual debt collectors they partner with are compliant with federal laws and best practices.
But how do Debt Collector Networks actually vet their members? That’s where TrendSource’s Debt Collector Inspections come in. But first, let’s talk about the laws governing debt collection.
A whole host of rules and regulations, as outlined by the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, strictly govern the ways in which debt can be collected and by whom. These regulations are enforced at the federal level by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission, as well as by states’ attorneys general.
Running afoul of these restrictions can lead to costly penalties. Individual debt collectors, then, should be verified by their Debt Collector Network, whose entire existence is based on helping companies avoid compliance issues because of the actions of unscrupulous collection agents.
When an individual debt collector seeks to join a Debt Collection Network, which helps them garner more business, that network mandates the collector undergo an Inspection. TrendSource is a premier provider of OnSite Inspections for Debt Collector Networks. These Inspections help the Networks verify and document that a potential applicant operates above board.
Debt Collector Inspections check for compliance with industry best practices. They include physical verifications of required equipment and security, as well as interviews with key employees. They can even be done virtually.
TrendSource OnSite Inspections is a long-established industry leader in Debt Collector Inspections. Between the Inspectors and our Quality Assurance Team, we help Debt Collector Networks verify their members with timely, reliable, and professional OnSite Inspections.
The cultural bias against debt collectors is pretty deep. TrendSource Onsite Inspections can’t change the industry’s reputation, but it can help institutions in their efforts to not make it worse.