FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
General
Southwest Recovery Services, Inc.
16200 Addison Road Ste 260
Addison TX 75001
You can also contact us by phone or fax.
Toll-free: 866-558-DEBT
Local: 214-387-8068
Fax: 214-619-0076
SWR was officially incorporated in 2004. Our management team has over 70 years combined experience in the third party collection business.
Yes. Southwest Recovery Services takes its FDCPA compliance seriously. In today’s competitive environment, you must stay educated and informed of the constant growth and change in the collection industry. Benefits of membership with the ACA include education of new collection laws in specific states and collection training and seminars provided to our staff. Our collection staff must complete eight hours of training each quarter as part of our company’s ongoing commitment to be fully compliant with the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
Depending on the level of services agreed upon, we will report your accounts to the credit bureau once a month. SWR maintains a relationship with TransUnion, Experian, Innovis, and CSC Equifax. As part of our agreement with these companies, we are required to report any changes and updates monthly, such as payments made or deletions made due to inaccurate information. This is done through a secure upload using the latest technology. Thus, your customer’s private records remain protected and secure. TransUnion | Equifax | Experian | Innovis
No. The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) permits the free exchange of credit information. When a customer does not pay you for the goods and/or services that you provided, that customer’s credit worthiness is in question and this falls under the FCRA’s guidelines.
SWR has invested in the latest state of the art skip tracing tools to find even the most persistent debtors. Most of our research is done on the internet and telephone. You would be shocked to know what you can find out about a person with a few clicks of a mouse. You can use our tools and databases prior to turning your account/s over for collection. For a fee of $5.00 you can have a professional locate your customer using over 2100 governmental, municipal and private databases that have compiled data on your customer. We can locate property, relatives, neighbors, and much more making it almost impossible to hide from their obligation with you.
Your business is as unique as the individuals that it employs. SWR has a proven record of accomplishment in excess of over 1,000,000 accounts collectively for a variety of businesses. This translates into millions of dollars for our customers. We have learned that collections are really about “selling” the customer into paying off his account. Our policy is to treat your customer with respect and dignity while firmly persuading him/her to pay. If done correctly, debt collection is more about negotiation rather than intimidation. We have built a business around this simple but effective concept.
Account
Yes. Once you become a customer, a dedicated sales representative will be assigned to your account. We are dedicated to providing you with a high level of customer service and this begins with individualized attention to your specific questions or concerns.
No. We understand that you have contracted us to work on YOUR accounts. Understanding this, we have a service agreement not a long-term contract. (Our service agreement can be viewed by clicking on the link below). You may cancel our service at any time by simply giving us written notice.
You can report a valid account to a person’s credit for a period of seven years from the last payment you received or the last date of service. For instance, if you sold a good or service in 2005, but received a payment from your customer in 2012, you can adjust the date of occurrence or date opened to reflect the 2012 date. The account will then remain active until 2019. The Fair Credit Reporting Act The complete text (as amended October 2001) of the law governing credit reporting.
Yes. The Fair Debt Reporting Act requires SWR to maintain accurate records and to report them in a timely fashion to the credit bureaus. SWR also utilizes the E Oscar system to answer all disputed items and to fix any inaccurate entries using a secure on-line database that all credit bureaus pull data from. The system allows us to update an account that has been reported within 72 hours. This is crucial when a mortgage or car loan is hanging in the balance.
SWR has made it easy and convenient to place an account for collection. Using our online placement service is the quickest route to start the collection process. Our online placement system is easy and is secure to use. We accept your computer generated files. Our IT department will import your data into a format that we can use and upload it into our collection system. You can also use our standard placement form or simply use your internal documents and fax them to us. Our data entry department will then scan your documents and our IT department will import the data into our collection database.
Debt Collection
No! Since we cannot give you an iron clad guarantee that every account is collectible, we feel it is unethical and unnecessary to collect fees prior to resolution of your account. We do not collect fees from you until monies are collected. SWR is dedicated to building strong long-term business relationships with our customers. This has been part of the company’s mission statement and its unwavering commitment to you.
Yes. We have legal services on retainer to help us collect our accounts after they have reached 90 days in our collection system. If we are unsuccessful in collecting with normal collection strategies and processes, we may forward an account to our national attorney network if authorized by our client. They also work on a contingency basis but will require that you pay any filing fees associated with filing a civil case on your behalf.
This success of collecting an account is dependent on many variables. The demographic of your customer, as well as the age of the account when it is placed for collection, are important. Additionally, if your debt is commercial or retail, it can make a difference in the timeline to resolve. We strive to recover your accounts as quickly as possible. Overall, our goal is to quickly and efficiently bring closure to your account and collect the balance due.
No, there is no minimum. We work with all different sized cases. Our portfolio includes debt collections in the hundreds all the way into millions of dollars.
Each state will have a different limit for the number of years you can go back. For example, the statute of limitation based on Texas law is that you can go back up to four years. Feel free to call us if you would like to know what the statute of limitation is in your state.
