Home Collection Agency — Kaplan California Debt Collection

Indus­try Involvement

You Need A Col­lec­tion Agency

If you are on this web page, it means you need a debt col­lec­tion agency. Some­one is not pay­ing what is owed to you and you are won­der­ing if a col­lec­tions agency is the way to solve your prob­lem. If you are spend­ing time mak­ing phone calls and send­ing let­ters, faxes, and emails, and your cus­tomer is ignor­ing you, then we can almost guar­an­tee you that you will never get paid with­out turn­ing to a col­lec­tions agency or per­haps even a debt col­lec­tion attor­ney. We can help.

Start Sav­ing Money

In this sit­u­a­tion, you start sav­ing money as soon as you start using our debt col­lec­tion ser­vices. Now we are the ones spend­ing the time to get your money, while you spend your time work­ing with your good cus­tomers to keep them happy and keep rev­enue and cash flow­ing. Your cus­tomer has made it clear that they are not going to pay you, so it’s time to do some­thing different.

Com­mer­cial Col­lec­tion Agen­cies (B2B)

The Kaplan Group is a com­mer­cial col­lec­tion agency, which means we only pro­vide debt col­lec­tion ser­vices on money that is due from com­mer­cial enter­prises – e.g. busi­nesses. This is some­times referred to B2B col­lec­tions or com­mer­cial col­lec­tions. We feel that by spe­cial­iz­ing in only busi­ness debt col­lec­tion, we can pro­vide supe­rior results for our clients, and that is reflected in our suc­cess rate.

You may won­der, how com­mer­cial col­lec­tion agen­cies be suc­cess­ful col­lect­ing an out­stand­ing invoice when you have already made dozens of calls and repeat­edly fol­lowed up with let­ters, emails and faxes. The sad truth is that some com­pa­nies owe so much money to so many peo­ple that they will only pay once they are con­tacted by a com­mer­cial col­lec­tions agency. In those sit­u­a­tions, it doesn’t mat­ter how often you call, you will never get paid until a pro­fes­sional debt col­lec­tor gets involved.

Of course, it is not as sim­ple as just hav­ing a pro­fes­sional debt col­lec­tor make a phone call and sud­denly your cus­tomer pays. Each com­mer­cial col­lec­tion agency uses a dif­fer­ent process and dif­fer­ent tech­niques to try to get your money. When choos­ing a com­mer­cial col­lec­tion agency, it is very impor­tant to eval­u­ate the process they use and the qual­i­fi­ca­tions of their debt col­lec­tors. At The Kaplan Group, all of our debt col­lec­tors have at least 10 years expe­ri­ence, and many have advanced degrees and exten­sive busi­ness and man­age­ment expe­ri­ence out­side of the col­lec­tion indus­try. To learn more about our busi­ness debt col­lec­tion process, please check out our videos.

Find­ing the Right Col­lec­tion Agency

The Kaplan Group is not the right col­lec­tion agency for every­one. First, we do not col­lect against indi­vid­ual con­sumers. We spe­cial­ize in large claims, so we also do not han­dle clients with ONLY small (under $1,000) claims against businesses.

But, if you need a col­lec­tion agency to han­dle that type of debt col­lec­tion for you – we still can help. With over 20 years of expe­ri­ence in this indus­try, we have devel­oped a small list of excel­lent col­lec­tion agen­cies that spe­cial­ize in debt col­lec­tion in areas that are not suited for our com­pany. Sim­ply fill out the request a quote form and tell us about your par­tic­u­lar needs – we’ll give you one or more col­lec­tion agen­cies to chose from that you can trust to do a good job get­ting your money.

Eval­u­at­ing A Com­mer­cial Col­lec­tion Agency

There are lit­er­ally thou­sands of com­pa­nies offer­ing busi­ness debt col­lec­tion ser­vices. It is not easy to find out if a busi­ness col­lec­tion agency is good or not. A select group, includ­ing The Kaplan Group, are mem­bers of The Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion of Com­mer­cial Col­lec­tors. Any debt col­lec­tion agency that spe­cial­izes in busi­ness debt col­lec­tion should be a mem­ber of this orga­ni­za­tion. It is com­mon for them to be mem­bers of the Bet­ter Busi­ness Bureau. The BBB is per­haps the old­est orga­ni­za­tion in the coun­try that facil­i­tates dis­pute res­o­lu­tion between cus­tomers and busi­nesses. If a busi­ness col­lec­tion agency has a clean rat­ing with the BBB, then that is a good indi­ca­tion. The Inter­net makes it so easy for peo­ple to rate, review and com­plain, so look­ing at Google Reviews or just doing a gen­eral Inter­net search on the name of a com­pany that does debt col­lec­tions can be a good way to eval­u­ate a col­lec­tions agency.

We don’t know if it is pos­si­ble to eval­u­ate the suc­cess rate claims of a debt col­lec­tion agency. At The Kaplan Group, we know we have an 85% suc­cess rate when we are col­lect­ing larger claims (over $10,000) against open busi­nesses – but how can we prove that to you? How do you even know if the cus­tomer tes­ti­mo­ni­als on a debt col­lec­tion agency web­site are real? One rel­a­tively new ser­vice from the BBB is the inde­pen­dent review site Trustlink. Since its focus is on reviews of BBB busi­nesses, and it is acces­si­ble directly from the BBB list­ing, we expect that this will be a great place to get real ref­er­ences on col­lec­tion agen­cies and debt collectors.

The Debt Col­lec­tions Process

Dif­fer­ent debt col­lec­tion agen­cies use dif­fer­ent debt col­lec­tion processes. Typ­i­cally, the most dra­matic dif­fer­ence will be between com­mer­cial col­lec­tion agen­cies and retail debt col­lec­tors. Col­lec­tion agen­cies that spe­cial­ize col­lect­ing from indi­vid­u­als have to fol­low the Fair Debt Col­lec­tions Prac­tices Act (FDCPA). The FDCPA has strict reg­u­la­tions on what a debt col­lec­tor can and can­not do. As a result, most debt col­lec­tion agen­cies that col­lect against con­sumers require that their debt col­lec­tor read scripts when talk­ing to the con­sumer. The train­ing process for the debt col­lec­tor at these debt col­lec­tions agen­cies is more about on how to not vio­late the FDCPA, and that means read­ing the cor­rect pre-determined script in response to what the con­sumer says.

At a busi­ness col­lec­tion agency, the com­mer­cial col­lec­tors truly need to be skilled in col­lec­tions. They need to be able to get the debtor on the phone, to get the debtor talk­ing, and then fig­ure out how to get the debtor to pay. How the com­mer­cial col­lec­tors are instructed to treat debtors can dif­fer dra­mat­i­cally from one debt col­lec­tions agency to another. Some col­lec­tion agen­cies want their col­lec­tors to be very aggres­sive from the first phone call. And if that doesn’t’ result in imme­di­ate suc­cess, they rec­om­mend that their client’s file a lawsuit.

Other debt col­lec­tion agen­cies take a more con­trolled approach. The debt col­lec­tions process is designed to learn as much about the debtor and their abil­ity to pay and then deter­mine the best approach to get them to pay. This approach also cre­ates the great­est pos­si­bil­ity of sal­vaging a rela­tion­ship between the debtor and the client. It also min­i­mizes the pos­si­bil­ity of a com­plaint and dam­age to the rep­u­ta­tion of the client or the col­lec­tions agency. This is the approach we use at The Kaplan Group, and we find it works best in the vast major­ity of cases. How­ever, when it is time to take a dif­fer­ent tact with a debtor, we don’t hes­i­tate to do or say what­ever is legally allowed in pur­suit of the money owed to our clients.

Click here to watch our instruc­tional video on the debt col­lec­tion process.

Please check out the ser­vices sec­tion of our web­site to learn more about our firm. Our research cen­ter has lots of infor­ma­tion for credit pro­fes­sion­als and peo­ple who need help with accounts receiv­able recov­ery. We encour­age you to take a look at our arti­cles, videos, and pre­sen­ta­tions and we hope you find it valuable.