Has this every happened to you? You have an account that owes your company a considerable amount of money. Everything goes well for awhile. The payments are made on time, the debtor calls you just because he wants to know how he can make your day better (hey, this is my dream!).

Then one day no more calls and worse yet, no more payments. You, being the good employee that you are, attempt to call them and you discover that they have disappeared off of the face of the planet. So, you go back through your previous issues of Collection Advisory to look in the Skip Trace column to ensure your best possibility of finding your debtor. You begin your search process and you can not find any thing, WHAT NOW?

The question is, are you looking for the right information? Confirming the information that you begin with is essential. Are you certain that the name, address social security number and phone number were TOTALLY correct from the start? I know the debtor gave you every bit of information that you asked for, but if you did not get the complete information you may have to spend considerable time, money and effort to get it corrected. Let me explain:

Name

Have you spelled the name correctly? Is it John, Jon, Jonn? Is he Jr., Sr., II or III? Is Smith her maiden or married name? Too many times we begin a search and later determine that the person we are looking for is actual the son or father of the person that we have found.

Address

Is the address an apartment or mobile home park or a duplex? If so, the address is not 123 Main St. Instead it may be 123 Main St. Lot 1, or 123 Main St, Apt 14