By Angela:

Often times I find myself in a position where someone is asking me what I do for a living and the reactions I get are pretty crazy. When I tell them I work for a collection agency, they either think I’m just a bad person, or they begin to understand, and are generally interested.

I recently went to a salon and they asked me what I did for a living and after telling them, the woman says, “Oh that’s got to suck”.  I love hearing this, because then I can take a few minutes to explain why it doesn’t and why what we do is important to the economy. It turns out the lady I spoke to was the business owner of the salon, and after I explained the benefits our industry has to businesses like hers, she then was very interested as her husband also owns his own business.

I think it’s common that most people assume debt collectors are just here every day to be mean to people, and trust me when I say that is FAR from the truth. We are everyday people who have at some point or another, likely gone through the same thing. We are nice people who care about our clients and their customers and stand by a collector’s pledge which everyone here takes to ensure we all treat people with respect.

While some may view what we do as a negative, the reality is much different, we help are here to help our clients, while maintaining good customer service so they can hopefully continue business with their consumers.

What we do isn’t a shameful profession but in fact a necessary one. Small business owner’s everyday are struggling and the collection industry plays a huge role in putting money back into their pockets and the economy.

We bet if you turn your mattress over, clean out your car and check the laundry, you’ll be sure to find at least a few dollars. That’s a good start. And guess what, there are even more places that you can find lost and unclaimed money for both personal and business. And it might be more than just spare change.

Each year, there is an estimated $58 billion in unclaimed money in the United States. And there’s got to be a few bucks for you lying around somewhere.

For both individuals and families, there are countless sources of unclaimed money out there just waiting to be spoken for and if you do a little bit of homework and research, you may just find a piece of that pie.

Here we list the more common places to look as well as why a small business should also keep their eyes open for unclaimed money. Continue reading “Where Can I Find Unclaimed Money?” →

By Mike Hiller:

I’m a foodie so when I hear ‘Eat something that frightens you,’ the words get committed to my long-term memory bank. Must have happened across this advice from the radio or I read it in a paperback book maybe. Can’t say that public speaking, or confined spaces, heights, or things that go bump in the night, or even spiders scare me all that much. Killed plenty of creepy crawlies in the name of machismo; let a few go in the name of feminism too. You’ve seen tarantulas for sale at exotic stores as pets. Many of their various species are in fact quite docile. Continue reading “Eat something that frightens you” →

What does a collection agency know about customer service? More than you think.

If there are a few things that are overflowing here at American Profit Recovery, its respect, and a deep desire to help. That’s helping the business that hires us and their customer that owes them money. They both require our help and some might say, they are both our customer.

Since we are most often talking about helping a business, stay in business, and what we can do to help them, let’s focus on the consumer for a moment.

While in many cases, a consumer gets into our system because of an oversight or even a minor dispute, many times, they are facing financial challenges. And in a lot of cases, they don’t know where to turn. So they ignore both the business they owe the money to and the debt collector. It is our job to open the lines of communication as best we can. And we cannot do that by being rude, unreasonable or not understanding of their situation. We need to be great at customer service. Continue reading “Great customer service makes you different” →

If you spend any time on Google looking for a collection agency then you have no doubt seen many articles on various aspects of collection agencies, good and negative. The fact is that in any business, you see the exact same thing. Let’s take food for example.

How many times have you gone online to look for a restaurant only to find a wide range of reviews and opinions about that business. Some of these opinions are valid while other may be misleading. Not all businesses are created equal and that goes for just about any industry.

What we can tell you about the collection industry from a positive aspect is that this is a necessary industry for both business and the overall economy. Without the collection industry, many in business would be out of business. Continue reading “A few positive facts about debt collectors” →

By Greg D. 

Contacting consumers is probably the most obvious thing a collection agency does.  Debt Collectors have a multitude of ways to reach out to consumers.  We can mail letters to them.  Some collection agencies may use email to try and get in touch.  Unlike years ago we now have a website that consumers seek out and look for help and make payments on.  But today just like 12 years ago when I started at American Profit Recovery, the number one tool in collections is the telephone and collector on the other end.

As one might imagine a collection call can go many different ways.  Recently I was speaking to consumer who had owed a bank for over drafting his account six months ago.  When I would call him he would hang up on me or send me straight to his voicemail.  He never returned any of my calls.  Then one day I finally reached him because he thought I was calling about the job he was supposed to start.  After hearing me out and realizing my willingness to help.  He explained to me that he had never been turned over to a collection agency.  The only thing he knew about debt collections was something he had seen on TV.  He said it did not paint the collection industry in a very good light.  The TV show had a recording of a collector being rude and harassing a consumer. Continue reading “How Do We Help a Consumer the American Profit Recovery Way?” →