I used to have a collection agency. The way it ran was quite simple. The debt owner turned the debt over to us and we file a suit against them if they didn't pay right away. Filing a suit was, at the time, pretty cheap in small claims court (most of the debts were small, if they were more we would have an attorney file in court). The name of the company was "Final Notice". There were also problems about that name but the name was a fact so they let me have it. Anyway, we never harassed anybody. Most didn't even show up in small claims to fight it and then it was just a matter of bumping the claim up. There are some facts, here, to mention. The first is that you can't squeeze water out of a rock and most of these debts were by people who had little or nothing to start with. The other thing is that when you have a suit against you then you can't buy anything on credit. The store will check and then turn you down flat so - you can't buy a car, or furniture or anything. The trick is to wait as most of them will get a job, etc and, eventually have to pay the debt, plus interest to get on with their lives. Oh, the attorney thing. I wrote a program to write the pleadings we needed and kept an attorney retainer who I paid monthly and was cheap. The attorney usually only had to sign stuff. It was one of the best businesses I have ever been connected with. The debtors rarely upset and they knew they had the debt and there were rarely problems. OH, and we made money too! The really interesting thing is that everybody who knew about this one thought we were crazy because we were not harassing the debtors. I was kinda interesting. Most of the debtors knew they owed the money but were broke. Some were simply deadbeats. OH, once you bump the small claims or lower court then you have something of value. Particularly if its a company that owes the money. You just gotta keep an eye on them and re-file before Uncle Sam comes calling when they go banko as that puts you in front of the feds for collection. In both cases we usually had uncontested lawsuits against them and, eventually they paid, unless they were bums and had nothing forever. If they were a company (usually a restaurant) that was going banko you were to the first in line as well. I always asked companies to tell me if they were going banko and most actually did!