11-03-2015, 09:48 PM
So I have a little experience with collection of government debt seeing as I work in, essentially, accounts receivable for a government agency. We have a couple of different options when we have a debt go to collections. We have a process we work internally unless we hear nothing from the person. At that point, if the amount due is under a certain dollar value, we write it off as it is more expensive to do anything further. If it the amount is greater than x but less than y we send it so a collections agency. We have two that we work with that specialize in the type of cases we bring. If the dollar value is greater than y then the amount is sent to the Commonwealth's Attorney's office.
The success rate for the agencies is higher because they work the debt more actively/aggressively. It does not cost us much of anything for this service as the fee is charged to the person that owes the debt. Using the CA, they do fairly well getting the funds and we don't pay anything for it, but the only thing done with those cases are a judgement is brought against them. It is a powerful legal tool, but doesn't really do much as far as collections purposes. It does allow the garnishment of wages and such, but even that is such a difficult process to get started it is a very long, drawn out process.
The success rate for the agencies is higher because they work the debt more actively/aggressively. It does not cost us much of anything for this service as the fee is charged to the person that owes the debt. Using the CA, they do fairly well getting the funds and we don't pay anything for it, but the only thing done with those cases are a judgement is brought against them. It is a powerful legal tool, but doesn't really do much as far as collections purposes. It does allow the garnishment of wages and such, but even that is such a difficult process to get started it is a very long, drawn out process.
