What are the Signs that You are Dealing with a Bad Debtor? Your Top Questions Answered

Dealing with the collection of debt can be difficult, especially if you are running a business which requires an enormous amount of your time and attention. Most of us simply do not have the time to chase a bad debtor – we have other tasks and priorities on our hands which require more urgent attention, after all. But if you have been trying to handle a bad debtor for a long time and nothing seems to work, you may need the help of an expert – namely a debt collection agency which can handle the collection of the debt for you in an expert and professional (and, needless to say, much more effective) way. But another factor which may be on your mind is this: how do you know if someone you are dealing with is a bad debtor or will become a bad debtor in the future? What are the signs that you are dealing with a bad debtor? Here, your top questions are answered.

• They don’t send their payments in on time, or they send them slowly. This could mean that they have issues with cash flow. Make sure to watch these kinds of customers as closely as possible so you will be able to deal with them promptly and efficiently before they get too deep into financial difficulties.
• If you have sent out your invoices and they return to you as ‘undelivered’ this could mean that your debtor has moved or is trying to hide their whereabouts from you.
• If your customer or debtor is suddenly unavailable, this could be a sign of a bad debtor as well.
• If your customer continuously makes excuses for late payment and the excuses don’t seem to make sense or are mounting up, this could be a bad sign as well.
• If your customer’s orders have dramatically decreased (or even increased), they may be having difficulties with their business, and this could signal their potential to become a bad debtor in the future.
• If the customer begins asking questions or raising doubts about the invoice they have to pay, they could be looking for excuses to delay payment – hence, the risk of their becoming a bad debtor.
• If the business changes ownership, watch out for this because these major changes could signal changes in how they pay their debt to you in the future.

If any of your customers show any of these signs, it’s time to look carefully at them and make the necessary preparations, so you will know what to do in case things become more difficult. One thing you can do, fortunately, is rely on the services of a debt collection agency. A good debt recovery agency can help you recover debts in a professional way, as they have the necessary tools to deal with bad debtors – including tracking and tracing them and investigating their backgrounds and whereabouts. A debt collection agency will spend all their time and attention on recovering your debt, which saves you time to focus on other pursuits as well. And since they are professional and skilled in debt recovery, they will be able to find ways to recover the money owed you which you may not even have thought of yourself, including face to face collection as well as the use of modern and advanced technology such as body cams.