Articles

• Collection of Credit Card Gross Chargeoffs

• Hunting Down Debtors

• You Can't Hide from Carl MacBride

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Collection of Credit Card Gross Chargeoffs  ^back to top

This is a chart  from the National Association of Retail Collection Attorneys' newsletter. We have been given exclusive rights to distribute this copyrighted material, an independent study prepared by Nilson, to the Credit and Collection/Legal/Debt Buying industries. Click here to open the article.

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Hunting Down Debtors   ^back to top

Carl MacBride finds debtors on the lam

BY BRIAN BANDELL
South Florida Business Journal, April 18, 2008

It’s bad enough when people owe you money. But it’s a bigger problem when you can’t even call them to demand payment or send a strongly worded letter.

That’s where Carl D. MacBride and his company, West Palm Beach-based International Research Specialists, steps in.

The industry term for what he does is skip tracing. When one of his clients can’t locate a debtor, International Research Specialists finds the person’s address, phone numbers, workplace and property ownership records. MacBride’s company doesn’t attempt to collect the debt. It would rather the debtor have no idea they’ve been found until the creditor calls them.

“We give the lender the element of surprise,” MacBride said. “We are in the ‘gotcha’ business.”

International Research Specialists charges an upfront fee based on the number of accounts it is searching for, plus a locator fee for each one it finds. The company promises to find 80 percent of the accounts or it will refund the upfront fee.

MacBride said that has never happened in the 30 years he has owned the company.

MacBride won’t say exactly how he finds people because he considers that a trade secret. He uses computers and databases, but said they aren’t effective by themselves. People working for him around the country do much of the work over the phone, MacBride said. However, he said he doesn’t send his employees on location to track people down.

LEGAL ADVANTAGES UNDER FEDERAL LAW

International Research Specialists has some legal advantages over lender collection departments and collection agencies. Under the federal Fair Debt Collection Practice Act, creditors and agencies representing them must disclose that it’s a debt collection call and who they are when trying to contact people. MacBride said most people hang up without saying anything when they realize it’s a debt call.

Since his company isn’t collecting debt and the employee doesn’t even know who the person’s creditor is, MacBride said his company’s workers don’t have to identify themselves over the phone.

MacBride said his methods can find people internationally and accounts more than five years past due. In fact, he prefers older accounts because there’s a greater chance the debtor has recovered financially and can pay.

Wayne Hood, a St Petersburg resident who formerly worked in the collection departments of several banks, said International Research Specialists regularly found around 90 percent of the debtors his banks referred to them. Most of those people pay because they don’t want their credit ruined or to face a lawsuit, Hood said.
Hood said he would go to International Research Specialists when the bank or its collection agency can’t find someone.

"A lot of times, banks put them with another collection agency, or they sell off the bad loan portfolio,” Hood said. “Wouldn’t it be worth it to give it one more try and see if you can collect them?"

Miami-based banking analyst Kenneth H. Thomas said banks have great demand for skip tracing now because of the large number of foreclosures. Banks try to serve a subpoena on every party with an ownership interest or collateral position in a home. This is especially important for investors in property that live out of the state or country, Thomas said.

“You will see skip tracers are needed when people leave the house and the place is empty,” he added.

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You Cannot Hide From Carl MacBride   ^back to top

The head of an investigation firm that skip traces for collection clients boasts success rates that many industry insiders fid hard to believe.

By Tonie Auer, COLLECTIONS & CREDIT RISK - MARCH 2008 

PICTURE AN INVESTIGATOR who specializes in finding people who don't want to be found.  He's off the cuff.  He's matter of fact.  He's a man of mystery.

He's Carl MacBride, president and CEO of West Palm Beach, Fla.-based International Research Specialists Inc., a licensed investigation firm that researches, locates and tracks information about people for various companies.  In short, MacBride's a skip tracer.

He's a damn good one, too.  Just ask him.  Many past clients don't dispute it either.  MacBride claims to find contact information for 80% of the names clients hand him.

Some say it's even higher; others are skeptical - highly skeptical.  They want to know: just how does he work this magic?

MacBride, purposely and deftly, evades direct answers to questions about what he does and how he does it.  Trade secrets and all.  If someone knew how he did what he does, well, it's like seeing how the rabbit got in that damn hat.

So, what exactly does he do? His goal is to find debtors' contact information, place of employment or any source of income and attachable assets for the names clients give him.

"There is your nucleus and main ingredient of recovery of money, "says MacBride, who talks like a character straight out of 1940s film noir.

Simple enough, right? Billions of dollars of charged-off debt evaporate annually.

MacBride cites an independent study by ACA International, the trade group that represents the collection industry,  that says historically with 70% of accounts sent to collections, the creditors have no idea where to find the debtors.

International Research Specialists does its job much differently than collection agencies.  "Collections and skip tracing should never be mixed. The focus of the collection industry is dollars," he says. "Every time they run across a bad address, they get frustrated, angry and annoyed and call 'em dead beats.  If you have that attitude, it hampers your ability to collect money.

"If someone gives you accounts where  you can contact that person at that number and they are gainfully employed and own their home, what is your approach going to be to that debtor now? It should be markedly different. At International Research, we need the collection industry to make us look good."

Back to MacBride's claim of finding 80% of the names given to him to research. What gives?

"We only get paid upon completion of a locate," he says. "This is the amazing part. This is why we get written up in magazine articles; we provide a written guarantee that we will locate 80% of leads that come in."

Finding that many people - many of whom do not want to be found - conjures images of gumshoes pounding the pavement in fedora hats, threatening people in dark alleys.

MacBride balks at that portrayal.

"Everyone in our organization has an 8-by-11 sheet they sign as part of their training," he says. "It simply makes one statement: if you do anything illegal, immoral or unethical, we the company, and you the employee, may both pay a fine.  However, you will do the time."

MacBride says he personally explains the practices that are illegal, such as passing themselves off as police officers or court officers.

"To me the real issue is to be morally and ethically correct. Why would you do something to locate someone if you wouldn't do the same to find your sister, mother, etc.," he says. "We deal with those ethics. I've only fired four people in all the years I've been in the business.

"We pull the best out of people," he continues. "We can't train someone in skip-tracing. We often hire paralegals. They do the lawyer's work, but get paid poorly. They are accustomed to doing investigation, research and tracking. We can coach them on creativity. People in our business are surprised if someone hangs up on us. It just doesn't happen."

While his people skills are finely tuned in tracking people down, he does not sweet talk the clients who hire him, says Tonja Doty, default prevention representative for Ed Financial, a student loan company based in Knoxville, Tenn.

"He will talk to me like he's my boss telling me 'this is what you need to do.' You don't get the warm conversation. He doesn't sugarcoat anything for you: and I don't care if he does."

Doty's work is commission-based, so it is very important to her to have the results of MacBride's work.

"He comes with a price," she says.

"But you get more return for your investment in him than from anyone else. I've used numerous Web sites and companies who have tried to help me skip trace, but I didn't get the results with them.  I don't know how he does it."

About 80% of those who default are gone, Doty says.

"We could spend all of our time looking for these people," she says. "He finds the people and then it is up to me. You pay for his services; he can find them for you, but you've got to do the work once he finds them."

International Research typically finds a phone number and address and, in her experience, has an 80% to 85% location rate, she says.

"We send him names and within two days I'll get my first batch of results," Doty says. "I'm about 50% (getting payment) on people he's found.  I have another 30% I've got good addresses and phone numbers for."

For Doty, one of MacBride's biggest assets is his ability to track down cell phone numbers and e-mail addresses.

"All these other Web sites and other agencies can't get you cell numbers," she says. "We've sent a lot of cases to collection agencies and used two that were highly recommended by the student loan industry, but we've recalled all of our cases and we're going to start our own recovery and use Carl.  If the client is willing to pay the commission, what does it matter that you paid a skip-tracer?"

For C. Wayne Hood, who has known and worked with MacBride for more than 20 years, results are what counts.

"He's found people under bridges," Hood says. "Sometimes you find people and they deny who they are, but he has various methods to make sure he can prove their identities and that is a big plus. You get what you pay for. He is a little more expensive than the other companies, but the difference is incredible. You can't collect if you can't find them."

MacBride is more of a detective than anything else, Hood says. On a professional level, he is "kind of mystery guy, but as far as I know in my 20 years involved with student loans and collections, I don't know anyone who can do what he does.  He has his secret of how he makes money and he doesn't share that. I think a lot of people make the same kind of claims, but they really can't live up to them. My work with him has been incredible, it is more like a 90% find rate. This is his forte and trademark and he's not going to give it up."

MacBride says he has fine tuned his business, bringing some of his experience  from the insurance industry with him. International Research was founded in 1967 and MacBride purchased the company in 1977.

"It was a big problem in the insurance business to find policy holders who had money coming to them," he says. "We found that computers don't find people. People find people, but only those who are well trained with the right attitude and talent to track them."

When it comes to the company's proprietary systems, MacBride will not divulge anything.

"Everyone would love to know how we do it, so they could do it without us," he says, assuredly.

At one point, the company searched for the owners of 20,000 accounts for Main Street Mortgages and located 93% of them , he says. The firm only had to do reconfirmations on about 2% and about 1% fled after they were located, he adds.

People have security deposits, first and last month's rent, and they are not going to spend $2,000 to get away because they owe someone $1,000 to $3,000, MacBride rationalized.
 

NOT SOLD

H. Spencer Nilson, publisher of the Nilson Report, which reports news and proprietary research on consumer payment systems, has some reservations about MacBride and his claims.

"I've been in the credit business for 37 years; once as a collector at a credit department and I did tracing myself. I know the problems that-collectors face." he says. "With very few exceptions, you can only collect 20% of debt. That is what I'm sure is correct."

When someone comes along and says his firm can increase collections to 40%, well, Nilson says he'd like to see some proof.

"He is the only one in the world who claims it. Until someone proves it with documents, we're not going to write about it," he says. "Without some kind of magic that hasn't been performed to my knowledge, the most that can be collected by any credit card issuer charge off is about 20% and I don't think it can ever be improved."

Nilson has encouraged MacBride to contact him if he ever receives a sizeable contract and can prove his claims. "Then, I'd think the industry would deserve to know about it," Nilson says.

Given MacBride's predilection for secrecy, Nilson probably shouldn't expect that call anytime soon.