Some time ago I remember exactly how it happened, I received a call to claim the supossed debit I had with a bank, this call was from an enterprise dedicated to the negotiation with delayed payments, I'll tell you how it happened; the phone rang at my house so I answered, in the other side of the line a masculine, strong and severe voice said: "Mr. Jorge Mario Salinas Flores, I am the licenciate Justino López from the enterprise : we will charge because we will charge INC. and the reason why I am calling you is because we are the legal office the bank hired because you haven't covered your debit of 10, 000.00 pesos since three months ago, that's why we will proceed to impede all your goods, conclude them and in certain moment if you haven't finished paying we are going to get you into jail, because you are a scoundrel that abuse of our good will, haven't you ever thought the damage you are going to make to your family ?
The reputation of your sons is going to be ruin forever because you are not in charge of your responsabilities, because being a bad payer makes you a delinquent, well you are noticed and remain relied to the consequences" when he finished in this way his monologue, yes monologue because he nerver let me to argue nothing, because if he had let me speak I'll tell him that he had the wrong phone number and that my name is Gabriel Pérez Mata and I didn't even had a credit card.

This thing made me think that to collect you have to be professional, not everybody can do it, because in this times of treats and practices like the one I told you do not give good results, because the management of collection, suddenly becomes difficult and turns into a fight, today the most important thing is to negotiate, establishing a stage win to win with the debtor, to be a professional. Today I have the good luck to direct in my country, México a enterprise of negotiation of debits, in which we encourage the negotiation as a method of charging and that give us results, we have prove that we can be firm and determinant to recover the debits that our clients entrust us, without stopping our professionalism and treating the debtors as persons, we have achieve more than treating them as enemies that we have to destroy.

Two months ago the Asociación de Profesionales en Cobranza y Servicios Jurídicos A.C., (of which I am proud to be part of), established a code of ethics, that among its points emphasizes :
To charge a debit is a legitimate right, as it is the mutual respect to the dignity among the debtors, the creditors and its representatives.
The managment of collection or its collaborators, under any circumstance, should introduce themselves as representatives of a jurisdictional organ or another authority, or as a part of a legal partnership, if its not the case.

This code was sign in last october as a regulation for the managment of collections through an agreement with the Condusef (a government organ in order to dissolve the controversies between the bank users and the financial institutions).

Every day from this practices the managment of collections in México is becoming even more and more professional, with better qualification in negotiation aspects and in the treatment to the client, giving us better results for the business that contract our services.

Gabriel Pérez Mata, corporative director of Grupo Kobranza. Director of prevention of risks of the Alianza Iberoamericana de Consultoria.

Source : www.cimexcredit.com