Collection Agency Industry Lingo

Empower yourself with the language of insiders. We decipher the arcane terms, epigrammatic abbreviations, and weird words used in the debt collector industry.

Dunning

Letters that are sent from the debt collector on behalf of the creditor. The attorney dunning process refers to the last letter that is sent from a lawyer outlining upcoming legal action.

Forwarding

The process of transferring a debtor's account from one collection agency to another agency in a different part of the country. Forwarding occurs when an agency is not licensed to do business in the state where a debtor is located.

Write-Off Rate

The accepted amount of bad, uncollectable debt firms should expect as a simple risk of issuing credit. With low profit transactions, firms should aim for rates of less than one percent. With high profit transactions, firms should aim for rates of less than five percent. Also called charge-off rate.

Skiptracing

A method the collection agency uses to find debtors who have moved or can no longer be reached at their billing addresses or phone numbers.