For many companies involved in the debt recovery industry, debtor tracing is a fundamental pillar of the job.
Although it is easy to assign a negative character to an anonymous debtor, there are a number of innocuous reasons that an individual may have failed to make the agreed payments.
The old adage "never attribute to malice that which can otherwise be explained by ignorance " rings true here in many cases.
A lot of debtors are simply financially oblivious, which is hardly surprising, considering that financial education is not a mandatory subject on the UKs national curriculum.
The sad truth is that a lot of people simply don't pay close attention to their finances and can easily be prompted into action by a few serious letters and phone calls.
Ignorance is not the only explanation for this behaviour though.
A look into the financial history or an individual can often be very illuminating for a debt recovery firm.
Commonly, failed payments can be attributed to a number of reasons: the debtor may have fallen on hard times - this would be indicated by financial records that indicated that the person was a reliable payer until a certain date, at which point they run into problems.
Others, are simply unaware of the payment terms and need to be prompted by a standard reminder.
On other occasions, a customer may have simply moved address and in the ensuing disorder, failed to inform their various financial obligations, resulting in their falling behind on payments.
Finding the new address can take finesse, but otherwise these individuals are often regular, if disorganised, payers.
In other circumstances, there may be conflict between the customer and the client - the customer is unhappy with the services rendered or products supplied and simply refuse to pay.
This can put a debt recovery service in an awkward position, unable to arbitrate between the debtor and their client - this is usually a case for the courts.
It may be that the product was sent by the client but never arrived with the debtor, leading to both parties feeling out of pocket.
In all of the above cases, as well as the more extreme cases of serial debt avoidance, the ability to trace a wayward debtor and research their circumstances can be instrumental in informing a collection agency of the best strategy to use when approaching the debtor.
Heavy handed tactics designed for debt avoiders are inappropriate for use on all but the most dire of cases, while a very softly-softly approach can be similarly inappropriate for a reluctant payer.