Debt Collection Procedures

You have outstanding receivables that you have not been able to recover despite numerous attempts to claim these. This is very unfortunate, since these debts bind your capital and your employee’s manpower.

The UNIVERSUM Group has been successfull in Collection Management for more than 30 years. In particular, the fast recovery of a large number of receivables is one of the core competencies of our Collection Management. Excellent training and many years of experience on behalf of our collection experts, along with an efficient IT structure and highly sophisticated processes are the key for a successful liquidation of debts. A collection expert deployed by us is able to make miracles come true should a debtor not respond to written or phone inquiries.

Pre-judicial Debt Collection

It makes no sense to appeal to courts to claim every unpayed invoice. Instead a clearly formulated letter sent by us may often be sufficient enough to persuade your customers to pay. Should the desired effect be unsatisfactory, our psychologically trained field-service staff will contact the defaulting debtor by phone and will– with the necessary sensitivity – try to achieve an agreement. Of course we will have agreed on an appropriate negotiating framework with you in advance. Many debtors see the contact with us as a chance to get rid of their debt within a defined process and to liberate themselves from a predicament. That is why we are able to achieve very high recovery rates in this field.

Judicial Debt Collection

Should these efforts prove to be unsuccessful, it is first and above all important to protect your claims against statutory limitation. This is done by securing a legally enforceable title which we can undertake for you on request. When your debtors receive the famous “yellow letter” from the Dunning Court, many debtors turn to us and try to bring their financial affairs back in order. If this does not happen, you still have the advantage that your claim is valid for the next 30 years and you will not have to worry about statutory limitation.

Many of your debtors will not have complied with their obligations towards several other creditors. Often we or a collecting agency we appoint actually succeed with good arguments and comprehensive experience to convince debtors to prioritize claims and to serve one creditor prior to others – i.e. your claim would be served first.

In consultation with you, we can arrange for having the bailiff recover your titled claims or even resort to an account lockout or salary attachment to induce solvent but unwilling debtors to comply with their payment obligations.

Long-term Monitoring (Surveillance) of Your Debtors

Often, however, it is the financial situation, which accounts for the fact that your debtors are not able to meet their payment obligations. This however can be changed when assuming a new job or by making an inheritance. If this is the case, payment of debts may be resumed.

Therefore we will monitor your defaulting customer’s situation and regularly check to see whether his creditworthiness has changed. If that is the case, we’ll be right there to obtain payment for receivables that are still outstanding.