Last Chance to Get Recognized as The Best Place to Work in Collections
Friday August 29th is the last day to register for the credit and collection industry’s first ever workplace recognition award program.
Sponsored by insideARM and facilitated by the Best Companies Group, Best Places to Work in Collections 2008 is an exciting initiative dedicated to identifying and recognizing the best employers in the credit and collections industry. The 2008 contest is the first in what we intend to be an annual program for the ARM industry.
The awards program is, of course, a great PR tool for the companies that are selected as winners. But the program goes much further than being a mere PR tool. Employers will gain valuable insight about the working environment they’ve created and will learn what their employees really think about the company.
Each company that participates will receive a free Participation Report with eight data points that reflect its employees’ experience of their workplace from eight categories of engagement: Leadership and Planning, Corporate Culture and Communications, Role Satisfaction, Work Environment, Relationship with Supervisor, Training and Development, Pay and Benefits and Overall Engagement. An average will be provided for each perspective, plus an average of the employees’ overall experience. Participants will also have the opportunity to order detailed reports on their company that include more comprehensive information and employee comments.
Only the top-performing companies will be publicly named; there will be no “Worst Places to Work” list. Participation is free and the Participation Report is free, so there really is nothing to lose.
For more information, please visit http://www.insidearm.com/go/best-places-to-work, but do it soon, the deadline is August 29th.
Dissension on the Democratic Ticket Over Credit Cards?
With Barack Obama naming long-serving Delaware Senator Joe Biden as his #2 this past weekend, the mainstream media has been poring over Biden’s record and past, publicly vetting the VP nominee in print and on screen.
From a political standpoint, at first blush Biden seems to align quite nicely with Obama on most every issue, and even offering strength where Obama is seen most weak.
But there has been much made of Biden’s apparent allegiance to the credit card banking industry early this week (“Democratic VP Nominee Long Viewed as Ally of Credit Card Banks,” Aug. 26). Biden, once famously called “The Senator from MBNA,” does not exactly toe the Democratic party line when it comes to credit card and financial services regulation.
So what does this mean for the credit and collections industry? Anything?
Biden was a strong supporter of the Bankruptcy Reform Act in 2005, a bill that the accounts receivable management and banking industry also supported. But so far, he has been mute on credit card reform offered up by his Congressional colleagues and the Fed.
The real question for the industry would be: Will an Obama ticket with Biden be seen as acceptable to the financial services industry, and by extension, the ARM industry?
Is Your Company a Great Place to Work? Tell Us About It
The debt collection industry is an interesting universe. Although the general public has a singular perception of what collectors are like at work, those in the industry know that collection agency workplaces are as diverse as any other industry. Some companies are great places to be employed, some aren’t.
insideARM is on a quest to find the best places to work in the credit and collection industry. As such, we’ve teamed up with The Best Companies Group to launch The Best Places to Work In Collections program.
It will be up to the industry to decide which companies are the best to work for, but we felt that we were the perfect group to facilitate such an endeavor. Over the next few months, we’ll be actively surveying companies in the industry – and their employees – to determine the best places to work. The results will be published early next year.
It all starts with registering your company at www.bestplacestoworkcollections.com. Company registrations must be completed by August 15, 2008. After that, The Best Companies Group will send out questionnaires to employers and their employees and tabulate the results.
This is not an informal poll or a “mood” survey. Each company that is registered will be evaluated thoroughly by The Best Companies Group. The group is responsible for creating many of the “Best Places to Work” lists you see in the media. And if a company chooses the online-only survey method, there is absolutely no cost to the company to participate.
Each company that participates will receive a free results overview report.
And don’t worry – there won’t be any “Worst Places to Work” lists published, so there’s really nothing keeping you from registering your company. Here’s that link again: www.bestplacestoworkcollections.com.
Credit Cards Make Appearance on Campaign Trail
Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic Presidential candidate, lambasted credit card companies’ marketing tactics yesterday in a speech on the economy (“Obama Says Card Issuers Trick Consumers with Unfair Practices,” June 12).
While not specifically proposing any new legislation, Obama noted that card industry lobbyists were having undue influence on consumer laws. He cited the bankruptcy reform of 2005 as a prime example.
And maybe he has a point, after news of card marketer CompuCredit’s troubles with the FTC and FDIC.
But what impact would increased consumer notification have on the marketing of credit cards anyway? Most Democratic proposals seek not to drastically alter terms of contracts or impose additional taxes or regulations on card companies. They seem to be more in favor of additional disclosures to consumers regarding minimum payments and “plain language” explanations of terms and conditions.
So what kind of effect would new laws stressing simpler consumer communication have on the extension of credit via cards? There seems to already be plenty of card debt out there, and I seriously doubt Americans would suddenly give up their lust for credit spending. What do you think?
Below is a snippet of the speech yesterday provided by CNN.
Keeping the Crooks at Bay: Tips to Avoid the Advance Fee Scam
The advance fee scam has become a major topic of conversation for commercial collectors as a team of crooks seem to be targeting the sector of the account receivables management industry. Collection experts are telling insideARM to get the word out. Lesson 1, if it looks too good to be true, it is.
Guest Blogger David Matten, owner of National One Credit Corp. in New York City, successfully fended off the crooks when they approached his firm. Matten offers some pointers to ensure your company isn’t the next victim.
HOW COLLECTION AGENCIES CAN AVOID BEING SCAMMED
With the emergence of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology that allows you to work from any country and change how your number reads on incoming caller ID’s as well as an increase in online scams, collection agencies have now become the target of sophisticated international scammers looking to gain control of your trust accounts. You may have heard this one before… “If you don’t receive the check by tomorrow, simply provide us with the wiring instructions for your trust account and we’ll wire it immediately.” Don’t be surprised if you get a call from a merchant 2 or 3 weeks later stating your check bounced or your bookkeeper asks you why you purchased a new laptop in China. The scammers simply took the account number you provided and included your routing code (which is public record if they know where you bank), and the only thing left to do is provide a starter check number such as 99999 on their check drafting software. You would only find out about it after there is a discrepancy in your trust account (and this could take weeks to catch).
1. The first and most important is NEVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES wire funds to a client prior to clearance regardless of the pressure being placed on you to do so (and try to avoid wiring altogether). You must make it clear that your policy is to only remit upon clearance and you should maintain internal controls that only release funds once they have cleared (in the case of foreign funds this could take months). As most of us have existing relationship with banks, a portion of our funds are likely to be made available much sooner and the scammers know this and hope you remit even a small portion.
2. If you receive an international claim make an attempt to call the client and confirm a working telephone number. Even if it’s after hours you may get a voicemail at the business that confirms the entity exists and that’s a start.
3. Open a separate wire trust account independent of your operating and trust account and then simply move the wired funds to your trust once received. You thereby maintain a zero balance in your wire account at all times and there is nothing left for a scammer to debit or write checks off of.
4. When dealing via email only - do your due diligence when the client emails you from public sources such as Yahoo, gmail, AOL, etc., as most legitimate companies have web sites and email addresses via their internal web hosting such as dmatten@national1credit.com. If you are getting a non-working number on the clients end (especially if it’s international) find out why that is. If client gives you excuses this should be cause for concern.
5. If you receive an email placement from a questionable entity then you should put everything after the @ symbol into your web browser and check out their web site. You may find you are dealing with nothing more than a free internet email provider.
6. Every check received over $10,000 should be verified - PERIOD. It takes 3-5 minutes to accomplish and saves you big time if the check is counterfeit. Simply do a quick online search for the paying bank and fax them a copy of the check. Most banks will not verify funds but will verify if a check is in fact genuine.
7. Periodically check the endorsement on the back of the checks that you send out after your bank returns them and see if the signing party in fact matches the client who placed the claim. Be wary of “pay to the order of John Doe” or any individual for that matter per “Your company name”. Ask yourself … why is my business check being cashed by an individual?
8. If the claim doesn’t pass the smell test, that’s probably because its bogus and no matter how excited you are thinking you just had a great month and you don’t want to lose this client so “lets just remit a portion early so we can get more claims” NEVER let your emotions get the better of you as you will only end up battling the bank for your funds back and you will likely lose.
9. And finally … always question debtor payments in cash. A quick scenario … a client places a $175,000 claim (and there’s more where that came from you are told) but wants a major discount in rate as its more of an accounting issue than recovery as “debtor pays in frequent small payments and its only 2 weeks past due - this has become too difficult to manage”. You open the claim at 10% or less and debtor starts walking in with cash a few weeks later which you apply to the open balance. You then remit to client via wire and this is the easiest collection you have ever had. What you may have failed to realize is that you just assisted a money launderer at the inexpensive price of 10% (or less) of all cash received. What a bargain! That is until the feds call you and then you can re-read this article b/c I will personally send it to you at the courthouse. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true. So ask yourself “Why Me?” when something really spectacular crosses your desk and looks to easy to be legitimate.
_250x250_0308.gif "Western Union - 4590")
