County Considering Contracting With Debt Collectors

by Mike Bevel, CollectionIndustry.com

Rather than taking bad-check-writers and other scofflaws to court, Oswego County, NY, is considering turning those debtors over to private debt collectors.

Under penal law, passing off a bad check is a criminal misdemeanor. Usually, those crimes are prosecuted ? which ends up as an expensive way of recouping losses. However, hiring a private debt collection agency would be less expensive, and more efficient.

Merchants would have a first crack pass at trying to get bad check writers to pay up; under the proposed system, merchants could then turn those accounts over to the DA?s office, who would in turn send the account to a collection agency.

?If you take a look at them, they are debt collectors, in essence that is really what they are,? Oswego County DA Donald Dodd said in an article running in the Oswego Daily News. ?What they do is enter into a contract with either a DA or county attorney; and there are specific conditions to the contract, whereby cases that could potentially equal issuing a bad check instead of going to police are routed to the company that you contract with.?

The motion was presented at the weekly Strategic Planning and Government Committee meeting. No action has yet been taken by the committee.