A Client came to Slater Byrne Recoveries’ debt collection agency in New Zealand with a three-year-old debt. The Client had engaged another debt recovery company to collect the debt; however, that firm was unable to successfully recoup such debt.

For this case, we employed a strategy that used a credit default listing and a Stat Demand to recover the unpaid debt.

The Issue

The Client had three unpaid invoices for services. At the start of the engagement, the Client informed us that they would like to obtain a court judgement for this debt as it has taken them a long time to get through the debtor. The Client said the debtor have not disputed the money owed but were just ignoring their obligation to pay.

The Problem

The debtor was not responding to any of the correspondense. As part of our debt collection process, we contacted the debtor through different modes of communications – email, SMS, and telephone.

When they finally responded to our emails, it was to tell us that the address that was on our Client’s file did not belong to them and asserted that we needed to serve the demand letters and all correspondence personally to the owner.

We insisted that for Stat Demands, the law does not require us to serve them in person. Rather, they can be served by post to the registered office address of the debtor company.

The Solution

For this debt recovery case, we suggested two solutions:

Our Account Manager in charge of the file, Ashleigh, pursued these two debt collection solutions simultaneously. We filed the default listing against the debtor after receiving no response from them despite our best efforts to contact them.

We also had a solicitor issue a Stat Demand against the debtor after they failed to pay within the time frame provided for in the demand letters. In the Stat Demand, we emphasized that no response from the debtor will force the Client to pursue a winding-up application against them.

The debtor, indeed, never responded to the Stat Demand until the day after its expiry, when they made a partial payment of the debt owed by the debtor, due to the possibility of facing a winding-up application.

There was, however, a remaining balance, and, because of this, we informed the debtor that, until this amount is paid, the credit default against them will remain as outstanding and they will be declined any credit or loan for a period of 5 years.

Key Takeaway

If you are a small business, you might find it time-consuming to recover debts on your own. It is best to get debt collection services as early as possible when you are faced with slow payers so that the correct path to recovery can be taken and you can focus on your core business operations.

Here at Slater Byrne, we boast of high debt collection success rates partly due to our license with Equifax, a credit reporting agency, and partly because we often look for out-of-the-box solutions, such as serving Stat Demands in New Zealand, to recoup bad debts for our clients.

A debt collection using credit default, coupled with Stat Demand, proved successful in recovering a three-year old debt as shown in this case.

You may be interested to read more of our latest posts:

Credit Default, debt collection case study, Stat Demand

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Debt Collection Case Using Credit Default and Stat Demand

The Issue

The Problem

The Solution

Key Takeaway

What We Do