Should you hire a attorney or a Dept Collection Agency to collect your debts?

Imagine, you’ve got a small business of your own and one of your customers doesn’t pay. Sure, you can remind them. You send them another email, a letter and give them a call. But after months, the debtor still hasn’t paid the money they owe you. Then it’s time to hire a professional. But who do you call? An attorney or a Dept Collection Agency?

Dept Collection Agencies

The most obvious choice is probably to hire a Dept Collection Agency. DCAs are experienced in recovering money and have the time, expertise and resources to do so. Also, they have resources to go after your money a lot faster than you can. They have specialized systems to automate the process of recovering money, so it’s more effective and cost-efficient. The costs for a DCA vary, but most of them have a ‘no collection, no fee’ service, which means you don’t have to pay for their service if they don’t succeed in collecting the owed money for you.

Attorneys
As you might know, there are also attorneys who are specialized in dept collection. Hiring an attorney can be a smart choice if you consider taking legal action. If we’re talking about large amounts of money, an attorney can be more effective and therefore a better choice. But hiring an attorney can be quite expensive. Attorneys sometimes charge hourly fees and/or collect one-third of the amount of owed money. And any costs you make by going to court, are paid in addition to the costs for the attorney. Of course, you should consider whether you even want to take your customer to court.

The best of both worlds

Some people choose a DCA at first and have to turn to an attorney when the owed money still doesn’t get collected. Too bad, because it’s the most expensive scenario possible. What many people don’t know, is that there are DCAs that actually work with attorneys. You can profit from the conditions of a DCA and have the advantages of hiring an attorney. A DCA that works with attorneys, like e-Legal, can take legal steps and continue to recover your money where ‘normal’ DCAs need to stop.

So, if you want to collect your money, you don’t have to choose between hiring an attorney or a DCA. You can get the best of both worlds!

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or management of EconoTimes.