5 Skip Tracing Debt Collection Techniques To Practice in 2022

5 Skip Tracing Debt Collection Techniques To Practice In 2022

You might not realize it, but your industry was one of the ones that made the process of skip tracing take off. It is incredibly effective at doing the one thing debt collection professionals need to do: find the people who owe money and make contact. So why is it especially effective in this field? In short, it’s because skip tracing techniques and debt collection make intuitive sense for professionals like yourself, as they are grounded in the paper trail of public records and financial transactions you already work with.

Search Engines

If you are working on a manual skip trace, the first place to go is the search engine. More accurately, the first step is a wide spread search of as many major search engines as possible. Over-optimized engines like Google frequently match you to results that do not help your goal, like genealogy sites that do not contain contact information.

Casting a Wider Search Net

Alternative search engines and those that emphasize traffic instead of optimization will yield a broader range of results. Each algorithm is different enough that it is worth running them all. Even the big ones like Google often quickly get you to the social media accounts and other leads that carry you forward if you use the correct search terms.

Social Media

Usually, the search process yields at least a couple of social media leads that might provide contact information or posts that give clues to the subject’s location. Skip tracing debt collection might end there if someone is public enough about that data, but it usually does not. Most people are reluctant to make personal contact information like a phone number visible to those outside a select circle. Since this is the first step that could provide direct contact via messaging or other contact information, it is the first accurate tracing technique in the process.

If your contact via social media does not pan out and the profile does not yield solid leads, the next technique to turn to is a reverse phone search. You can find many services online that offer information like location and full name if you have a phone number from the record of the account carrying the debt. If that number is out of service, though, it may be a dead end. If you found a phone number on social media but need to make contact in written form, this step is often how you will get the personal address for the mailing.

White and Yellow Pages

Should the reverse phone search wind up yielding an outdated address, the next step is to go looking for public records of the current one. Unfortunately, the days of free and comprehensive white pages are over. Today’s phone guides tend to be more selective with their free offerings, with premium online services to track down those not directly listed in the hard copy. Using both the physical book and the online service, you can frequently pull a current phone number and often an address with it.

Vehicle and Voter Registration

Alongside those first three interrelated techniques, skip tracing should involve basic vehicle and voter registration information checks. Suppose you do not have a private investigator’s license. In that case, access to this information is typically obtained through a licensed professional or a skip tracing service like BatchSkipTracing that consolidates all these varied techniques into a single search with detailed and organized lead data. Suppose you opt to go with a private investigator. In that case, they usually provide information dossiers from public records for a simple fee since the time to pull the information is minimal and does not involve investigative fieldwork.

You might wonder what skip tracing in debt collection will do with a criminal record check, but the answer is pretty simple. If someone is hard to find and collect from because of incarceration, you need to figure out the next steps. With the prison labor system being what it is, there is no guarantee that the subject is in a position to pay the debt until release. Additionally, if there is an available record of an address from parole or court records, that could be a lead.

Consolidate Your Search, Simplify Your Process

If a manual search through all these skip tracing techniques seems time-consuming, you are correct. Most professionals in investigative fields look to services that provide fast searches through multiple paths, even those with direct access to public records searches. The direct search for vehicle registration records or deeds can corroborate the skip trace lead, after all. Not only can you consolidate the search process into near-instantaneous results, but you can also run high volumes of them through the system, allowing you to work your list more efficiently. Check out the features and rates available today to learn more.

Dots lines
BatchService

BatchService

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Tags for This Post

Get access to top-notch SkipTracing Data

SIGNUP FOR FREE
BatchLeads Offers You
5,000 Property Records For Free!

Suggested Articles

Mail icon

NEWSLETTER

Subscribe to our weekly investment updates and stay tuned!