Collection agencies, debt buyers and collection law firms are still experiencing lower than average performance in the year-and-a-half old recession, according to early responses to insideARM’s quarterly Credit & Debt Collection Industry Confidence Survey, sponsored by LiveVox.

The current survey, for Summer 2009, is still open. If you haven’t participated yet, please take a couple of minutes and fill it out here. Once again, thank you to all that have taken it; the response has been just as robust as our previous surveys.

In our last survey, which covered performance in the first quarter of 2009, ARM firms indicated that performance had improved from late 2008 as early tax refunds gave consumers a much-needed cash infusion. But the current survey appears to indicate that performance slipped in the second quarter and is continuing to struggle through the summer.

On a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 representing “Very Strong” performance, ARM firms have rated current collection or liquidation performance an average of 3.23 in the still-open summer survey. This was stronger than the 3.18 average rating given to the second quarter’s performance, but down from the first quarter’s 3.53 average.

By contrast, the average rating for performance in the fourth quarter of 2008 was 2.81. The deep drop in performance late last year, and the slight recovery so far in 2009, was summed up rather well by one comment from a survey participant:

“In October 2008, the recoveries fell off a cliff. We are rebounding from a difficult period. Inflation and unemployment will continue to hold us down and hamper recovery.”

Other participants also had comments on performance trends:

“Liquidation rates are still half to less than half of 2006 to 2007 numbers, but appear to have stabilized.”

“Collections are way down - in single digits.”

“I strongly feel that the good news is we have bottomed out. The bad news is we will ride the bottom for a couple of years.”

“The economy definitely has had a negative affect on collection success and we are finding we must be more empathetic to keep payments flowing.”

We are collecting slightly different demographic information on survey participants this time around as well, mostly focused on geography. More than 80 percent of survey-takers so far are from the United States, with the vast majority of non-U.S. participants in Europe. So far, California is the most popular state, with around 13 percent of participants working in the Golden State.

There is still time to participate in the survey. Please take a couple of minutes and check it out if you haven’t already.