Selling Business Debt

[EvianBaby]

We have a couple of accounts (other businesses) that are way over due despite lots of chasing. I'm looking into all our options to recover the debts and noticed that some debt collection agencies offer to buy the debt off you.

I plan to make a few enquiries this afternoon but of course they are going to want to sell me a service and might avoid letting me know about any downfalls.

Can anyone advise if there is anything I should be looking for in particular that might make this a poor option?

As I said, I am looking at all our other options but I would just like advice on this particular option for now please.

[buildersmate]

The gist is that they pay you now less than the debt is worth, then attempt to collect the money themselves to make a profit.
So it boils down to some income for you now, or continue your efforts to get the whole amount at an indeterminate time in the future.

[ubasses]

Have you threatened with court, if they can pay but are just dragging out as long as possible it will probably put you to the top of the queue. They will not want a CCJ on their records.

[bednobs]

also you might want to consider you'll never be able to sell to these people again once you've set the debt collectors on them - even if their business picks up (not that you'd probably want to)

[EvianBaby]

Thanks for the answers. Well I called one or two debt collectors and they said most of them only deal in bulk purchases, which we do not have so my next bet is probably to look into getting a solicitor to draw up a letter. I did however drop into one of our debtors this afternoon as I was in the area and the owner seemed quite shocked it had not been paid so I'v given him until tomorrow. I still have some others who I need to persue action with.

In terms of your advice Bednobs, you quite rightly suggest at the end that we never want anything to do with any of these companies again. And I'm not sure they'd be stupid enough to ask us to work for them again. Although that is something we do consider with longer standing customers.