Skip tracing is the process of locating a missing person who is trying to hide to avoid paying back the debt. The missing debtor or the debt seeker is the person of interest and is called the skip and the process of locating the skip is called skip tracing. Skip tracing services are among the most critical components in any collection environment. Many surveys have revealed that nearly 40% to 60% accounts of the consumers in the collection industry do not have point-of-contact information. The above fact necessitates the need for the development of skip trace skill sets in your employees to reduce the devastating effects of missing debtors.
Growth of skip tracing is an essential tool to prevent bamboozlement
In yesteryears, it was relatively easy for the debtors to leave the town or the country and default on their financial obligations. This way, they were able to avoid collection attempts and leave no option for their creditors but to skip trace them. Traditional methods of skip tracing were manual. Surveys have shown that 38% of the collectors take over two weeks to pinpoint the subject. In the present time, collectors have a wide range of resources at their disposal. You can implement technologies and use databases to find the right party contact.
A typical skip tracing process contains three primary phases. Whether you want to confirm the credibility of an individual or business or trying to trace a missing defaulter, the best practice is to break down your search into the following steps.
From Visually.
Categorizing the person of interest
The first step is to take the information by the subject. The subject often gives this information at the beginning of the deal. Using this information, you establish the essential identity of the subject.
Search refinement
Next is to verify the information collected in the first step and ensure that you are looking for the right party.
Information gathering and tracing
Having the necessary data, you can proceed to find detailed information about the subject from different databases and resources and find your person of interest.
Information from phone number databases, automobile records, GPS data, social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.), web searches, loan applications, job applications, property documents, public record databases, bank records, etc. can be used to locate the person of interest. Most of these databases and information sets are available electronically and can be accessed using data mining services. Nearly 95% of collectors agree that these latest technologies and databases have improved their search for the right-party contact significantly.
Several surveys conducted indicate that an average of 83% collectors who have their employees trained in the data mining services and skip tracing can locate their skips in just a few minutes. They can find the real-time location of the debtors and contact their friends, relatives, neighbours, and colleagues to find their information and verify. The new age skip tracing services has tremendously accelerated the process and has become a primary tool to find the defaulters and prevent frauds.
How skip tracing helps in preventing and resolving frauds?
Information about the individuals is the most vital resource to control and prevent frauds for the businesses who deal with credits. Skip tracing is an excellent way to gather maximum information about the person of interest. Earlier, skip tracing used to be a tool to find the missing debtors. However, in the present day and age, it is used more proactively. Businesses are using these tools to gather information before sanctioning the credits to assess the credibility of the debtor. These tools are also useful in judging the possibility of the repayment of the amount. This helps in curbing the possibility of frauds and increasing the likelihood of locating the defaulters for recovery. Skip tracing has become an inevitable part of many industries. Here are some ways skip tracing helps in curbing the fraudulence.
Information in a cost-effective way
Information is the key to curb cheating cases. Skip tracing uses the newest technologies to gather data more accurately and quickly. This saves a lot of time and money for the tracers. Information like location, activities, address, email address, contact number, etc. can be found on the internet using social media without nearly no financial investment. This helps in verifying the information submitted by the subject and helps in early identification of the people who are trying to or can possibly conduct a fraud. You can remove such people from your organization or do not recruit them in the first place. Social media accounts are also a fantastic way to get in touch with the people related to the missing person and enquire about his/her location. When so much information is at your fingertips and can be accessed within no time, it becomes easier to find the defaulters. This also discourages people from attempting frauds.
Establish the need for private investigation
Conducting a private investigation or hiring a private investigator to look into your business’s matter can be expensive. If you have your employees trained to skip tracing, you will be able to handle frauds without making that investment. Also hiring professional skip tracers can be more productive and less expensive than private investigators. This lends a high helping hand for businesses that are running on limited liquid resources and deals in the lending and collection industry.
Access control and performance enhancement
In the modern business environment, business frauds are not limited to debt defaulters. Businesses are working with unique assets like confidential information and valuable data. These assets are vulnerable even within the company. With skip tracing, you can implement better control on the accessibility and search criteria. Also, it helps you find the right-party with greater accuracy. You have better control over your search and are more likely to track down the right person. It enhances the performance of the entire collection process.
Help in data scrubbing
To prevent frauds and efficiently find the deceivers, it is essential to have accurate and precise information. Often scams go uncovered or unresolved due to inaccurate, redundant, and ambiguous information. Such information is misleading and takes you nowhere in your investigation about a person. Misinformation about a person can lead you in wrongly believing the authenticity of the person. This can increase the chances of frauds instead of preventing it.
One of the crucial aspects of skip tracing is data scrubbing. It refines your databases by monitoring, flagging, and scrubbing the data. This can be done for data related to individuals as well as businesses you are working with and helps you achieve results more economically and accurately in much less time.
Assist in serving court documents
Frauds often lead to lawsuits which require you to present or confirm the identity and address of the person(s) involved. With skip tracing, you can get trusted and precise information and can personally serve it to the court. This can considerably speed up the trail and increase your chances to get the losses repaid.
Also Read: Now Save Time and Money with This New Way- Skip tracing for Banking and Finance!
We at BizProspex have 5 plus years of experience at providing Skip Tracing services, email address search, Email data validation, email address validation, email verification, data scrubbing services, data appending, email appending services, data verification, web scraping services and have garnered much trust from some of the most elite clients. Over the years we have perfected the art of skip tracing for our clients. Our clients have trusted us time and again and every time our results have met their due expectations. We have a dedicated and highly specialized team for performing the Skip Tracing. Our methods are agile and communication is one of our key components at providing the best possible results to our clients. If you are looking for the best in class skip tracing service, contact us now!