Recent Studies show Debt Collection Improvements

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Office of Consumer Response) has published its annual report, which includes very encouraging news for the debt collection and financial services industry.

Everyone knows that no-one likes a call from the collection attorney. That leads to a disproportionately high volume of complaints against the industry. However, even with all the “get out of debt without paying” hucksters advertising and encouraging spurious complaints, overall complaints in the debt collection industry have significantly declined.

When a past due debtmakes it all the way though standard debt collection and up to a debt collection attorney, we can be reasonably sure that there are going to be challenges. It is rewarding to see this drop in complaints, as it infers that some of our industries “bad apples” have either reformed, or moved on.

How refreshing to see quantifiable improvements in the debt collection industry.  It would be nice if the data were more granular though to evaluate debt collection in Florida, as opposed to nationwide.

We believe that this shift is largely due to increased professionalism within the collections industry.  Our Florida Collection Law Firm spends a huge amount of time traveling for industry sponsored education events focused on collection best practices.  As attorneys, we have a significantly higher standard that we must conform to in order to be in compliance with the Florida Bar.  When dealing with larger debts, it may be far more preferable to involve a collection attorney, as opposed to a collections agency.  Doing so may reduce the probability of complaints, and reduce the possibility of a debt being forgiven due to bad practices.