Hi. I have a court order for someone who owes me $1k. I have been unsuccessful in getting him to pay.
I'm based in MEL and the person who owes me is in SYD.
Is it recommended to make use of a debt collector? If so, are there recommendations on which agency to approach?
Thanks.
$1k isnt a lot of money. i wouldnt bother with court or debt collectors as they will cost u.
take it as a lesson learnt. I owed my previous employer around $7k. they got debt collectors on me i told them to piss of and they never contacted me again.
also they need to be legally bound to pay you before debt collectors have the right to chase em up.
do you have a contract(s) / court orders supporting your claim
Yes I do. I have a Magistrates Court order demanding the person to pay up.
I know it isn't a lot, but if there's an agency that can do this for commission basis, I'm open to it before writing this off.
fair enough. depends how clever the person is. if they easily scared by threats over phone they might. if they smart and know their rights then not much incentive for the agency to pursue.
but yeh, if commission basis u dont have much to lose
I believe most debt collectors will extract their collection fee from the person they are collecting off… Unless you are selling them the debt for a discount.
There's a Google ad appearing on this page while I'm reading it, for "Prushka debt recovery".
You could try D&B Collect:
$90 fee + 15% comms on the debt collected - So at best you'd see may be $750:
https://www.dnb.com.au/debt_collection_subscribe/
I drive through King Street every morning and see this mob advertised on the corner of Lonsdale and King: www.ecollect.com.au
They don't see to publish their rates but may be worth giving them a call?
I worked for a debt collection agency many years ago, anything over $80 we would chase up, we could take them to court and affect their credit rating. So, yes, do use one and try an obtain as much as you can. D&B are big and one of the leaders, Prushka are up there as well.
Still, if it costs $900 to retrieve the debt (leaving you with 100) and you don't value the relationship with the debtor anymore. Go ahead with it. The person needs to learn a lesson.
I worked for d&b and they are ruthless, while remaining within the debt collection guidelines.
You could do the debt collection yourself. Please double check what I say below as its from memory.
Check the info on the NCAT website (NSW tribunal for small matters) on how to enforce orders as it should be the same.
As you already have a court judgement, I believe you can go straight away to more drastic steps being either garnishee order or sheriffs involvement. With the garnishee order, you basically send it to all the major banks and then they search their records to see if the debtor is a customer of theirs and if they have the money in their account. If yes the bank will take the money and send it to you. I think you can also send a garnishee order to the debtors employer. The other way is with the sheriffs office where the sheriff will visit the person and write down an inventor of the debtors assets and stop them from being able to sell them. Then the debtor has limited time to pay or the sheriff will come back to collect the assets.
I guess you would need to pay a few hundred dollars in fees for these options although I guess they would be added onto the debtors debt.
Hi. Yes I have already started the process of sending to major banks. I have sent to 11 banks now and so far no recovery has been made. I think the guy is either unbanked or is using another person's account.
If there are debt collectors out there who can do a better job, I'd like to give it a shot.
Thanks for all the recommendations.
Before anyone else says that…. go the BIKIES!