Am I the only one who doesn’t have an “A” button on my computer? I’ve searched the keyboard, monitor and hard drive and can’t find that damn thing anywhere. No one will tell me where it is.
You know what I’m talking about, right? No, not the one between Caps Lock and the “S” key.
Let me explain. You can walk up to some people and tell them that you are a jump crawler. If you’re like me, then you have to explain exactly what that means. You tell them that you use the phone and the computer to track down people who owe money. The usual response I get at this point is, “yeah, you can go online and hit the ‘A’ button and poof, you can find anyone.” Sounds familiar?
Is it really that easy? If so, I’ve been doing it the hard way for years. Or is it that some people think they know how to do our job better than we do? I like to refer to this group of people as “them.”
I think there are some things “they” don’t understand. “They” don’t realize that we only have 4 tools: the phone, the computer, our minds, and each other. We then take these tools and use them in various combinations like a surgeon to dissect mountains of information until we find our debtor.
“They” do not understand the multitude of laws such as the FDCPA, FCRA, GLB and others that guide our searches for fear of what we might do with this acquired knowledge.
“They” don’t understand that we can take a social security number and just by looking at it we can determine that any SSN that starts with 000 or ends with 0000 is not real, or that the first three numbers indicate the state it was issued in. We also know that before 1972, SSNs were issued when a person got their first job, after 1972, SSNs were issued at birth. Should we tell them that until recently SSNs were issued in numerical sequence starting in the New England states and then going down the East Coast, then the Midwest, and finally the West Coast? Only now additional numbers are being added to the list.
We also know that if the debtor has a hunting or fishing license, that document is a public record. We may obtain address and phone information from her. And when it comes to public records, there’s a ton of information we can get. These include, UCC, if the debtor has a lien, or if the debtor is a notary, or if the debtor is deceased or if the debtor has been sued, divorced, or won a judgment.
“They” don’t understand that if we have a debtor’s name, we can go to http://www.bop.gov and determine if that debtor is or was in federal prison. Should we tell them that if we have a possible name, address or phone number that we can go to [http://www.argali.com] or http://www.pretrieve.com and find all kinds of useful information? “They” didn’t know that with just one possible address we can go to http://www.netronline.com and find out who owns that property, like the debtor or the owner.
Do “they” know that if we go to the page of the Secretary of State of any state, we can determine who is the owner of a corporation, who are the officers and possibly even see the documents filed by the corporation? I’m sure “they” are unaware of the fact that we can go to http://www.vinelink.com or http://www.publicrecords.com and find just about every available public record on the debtor so we can direct our investigation in several directions.
There are so many more things we do that “they” don’t understand. But let them think what “they” want. We know the truth. We know our benefit to the overall corporate process. We know that if we couldn’t do our job, prices would have to go up because of the loss from being unable to charge those you can’t find.
It’s time for us to pool our resources, experience and skills by creating a place to exchange techniques and updates so that WE can control the future of our industry.
It’s time for “them” to know how valuable we are. “We” are interested in your thoughts.
As always, happy hunting.
