Skip tracing is a crucial step when attempting to recover debt from someone hard to trace.
- Although hiring a skip tracer might help you save time, you may have to pay a significant chunk of your due money.
- This post is for entrepreneurs and independent contractors who are thinking about employing skip tracing to find unresponsive debtors.
- You must first locate the individual who owes you money to collect the debt. Finding such people is perhaps easier said than done. While some debtors may attempt to disguise their inability to pay what is due, others may be up-forward about it. Skip tracing could be required in certain circumstances to find the debtor.
Describe Skipping Tracing
Finding someone who has migrated or otherwise gone is done via the method of skip-tracing. These people often moved or vanished to avoid having to fulfill certain obligations, including paying off debts. Skip tracing differs somewhat from detective work or bounty chasing, both of which might result in an arrest.
Skip tracing is often used in the debt collection process since it may assist creditors in locating debtors.
Who Uses Skip-Tracing Methods?
Skip tracing is a frequent debt-collecting strategy. If you employ a debt collection company to try to recover money from a nonpaying debtor, the company could use skip tracing to locate the debtor.
The task of finding such a debtor is one that debt collection firms are better equipped for and have more time for, but you probably have more important tasks to do. Skip tracing is also often used by detectives, private investigators, journalists, reporters, and lawyers.
How Can You Tell If Skip Tracing Is Required?
You could believe that skip-tracing is required to locate a nonpaying customer who owes you money if they become unreachable. Skip tracing isn’t always essential, however. In certain cases, you may discover the data on your own.
That’s because a lot of information is now readily accessible online, unlike when skip tracing first became popular. Theoretically, skip tracing may be started by oneself thanks to search engines and social media networks. A more seasoned skip tracer may finish the task if you are unable to complete the skip trace fully on your own.
How Does The Skip-Tracing Procedure Work?
Skip tracing normally goes in the following sequence, should it become required.
1. Your Skip Tracers Confirm The Facts On The Debtor
It’s conceivable that you don’t have the right contact information for a debtor, which is why you haven’t heard from them. Verifying the debtor’s contact details is a straightforward first step in the skip-tracing process.
If you’re fortunate, the skip tracer will swiftly locate the right contact details so you may get in touch with the debtor and demand payment.
2. Your Skip Tracer Gathers The Debtor’s Information That Is Accessible To The Public
Not everyone enjoys searching through informative databases in quest of useful knowledge on a certain subject; sometimes, it may be found there, but if not, you’ve wasted important time. A skip tracer may do the job for you if you don’t like this drawn-out, sometimes irritating procedure.
A skip tracer will research your debtor by looking for information in the following public records:
- Location History
- Travel background
- Court documents
- Credit card requests
- Credit histories
- Background checks and criminal records
- History of licenses to drive
- History and applications for jobs
- History and applications for loans
- A list of phone numbers
- Searching tools
- The Internet
- A tax return
- Utility costs
- Vehicle background
Your skip tracer may be able to make connections using the information in these records to find your debtor. If they fail, they could try another approach.
3. Your Skip Tracing Service Contacts The Debtor’s Loved Ones
The debtor’s friends and relatives may often assist a skip tracer in locating a debtor, however, they may not always do so voluntarily and should never be forced to do so against their will.
Try reaching out to the debtor’s present and former landlords, neighbors, or coworkers if friends and relatives are unable to assist. These persons might provide information on where to look for the debtor.
Should You Use A Skip Tracing Service To Recover An Unpaid Debt?
If you’re a company owner or freelancer with a nonpaying customer, you undoubtedly have enough on your plate already; it’s not at all enticing to go looking for someone you may never find. Because of this, a lot of debt collection companies provide skip-tracing services.
Since debt collection companies are experts at getting in touch with debtors, they could locate any missing contacts and be more successful at getting debtors to pay than you would be. They also have more time than you do since it is their business to collect debts.
That being stated, using a debt collection service will cost you fairly. These companies often retain 25% to 50% of the debt as their fee. Our collection agency evaluations may assist you in selecting the best firm for your requirements if you decide that the expense of engaging a debt collection agency is worthwhile. Ideally, you’ll locate your debtor quickly and recoup the money you’re due.
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