Ethics set the tone for the first day of insideARM’s First Party
Summit, in Itasca, Illinois.
The keynote, given by Al Gini, professor of business
ethics at Loyola University of Chicago, looked at “Leadership and Business
Ethics.” However, it was the panel discussion afterwards that took some of
the lofty, theoretical ideas of from the keynote and discussed their practical
applications within the collections industry.
The panel for “Business Ethics in the Day-to-Day
World of Clients and Vendors in the ARM/CRM/BPO Industries” was:
- Kelly Knepper-Stephens, Stoneleigh
Recovery Associates LLC - Barbara M. Woodworth, CGI Financial
Solutions Group - Therese M. Yakel, Early Out Services,
Inc., and General Services Bureau
The message from the panel: ethics needs to make its way
from a buzzword shopped around in RFPs and company manuals directly to a
company’s bottom line. There is an incredible cost for unethical behavior —
cost that, maybe once, was easily explained away due to high collection rates.
That paradigm is shifting, though, and regulators and
government entities are measure the debt industry’s successes and failures
against an ethical yardstick.
Unethical behavior is also fueling headlines: Kelly
Knepper-Stephens reminded the audience of the recent Wells Fargo meltdown,
highlighting specifically how policies and procedures from one of the leading
banks weren’t necessarily the practices of many within the company.
Closer to home was the case of Commercial Recovery
Systems. A complaint charged that CRS participated in deceptive acts or
practices — specifically, that employees called consumers claiming to be
attorneys or judicial employees. Consumers were told that lawsuits had
been filed against them, offering to settle the lawsuits out of court;
or, they claimed that consumers’ wages would be garnished.
On September 21, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern
District of Texas entered a stipulated order for a permanent injunction (can’t
ever participate in debt collection activities again) and civil penalty
judgment against the vice president of Commercial Recovery Systems.
What
is clear now is that ethical behavior is not a polite story agencies can tell
about themselves, but instead must be a thoroughly-lived practice. The
consequences are both devastating and costly.
