Chapter 12
Locating a Hard-to-Find Debtor
In This Chapter
Deciding whether to do skip tracing in-house
Developing your skip-tracing skills
Accessing public records and other critical data
Putting together a plan of action
How does it happen? Some debtors seem to just disappear into thin air. You know they’re still around somewhere, perhaps just a few houses or businesses away from the address in your files. Or they may be halfway around the globe. Their phone numbers probably won’t help you figure out where they are, because call forwarding works all over the world. When you track down the new address they gave you, you may find that it’s a mail drop (such as a UPS Store).
How do you find a debtor who doesn’t want to be found? When a person disappears to avoid paying his bills, he’s known as a skip, and the process of locating him (and his assets) is thus called skip tracing. This chapter is devoted to the art — and it is an art — of skip tracing debtors. The tips and Web sites we provide can help you track down some of your difficult-to-locate debtors.
Two of the most powerful tools in the arsenal of the skip tracer are imagination and instinct. With an Internet connection, a phone, and perhaps a bit of luck for good measure, a skillful skip tracer can make it difficult for a debtor to avoid detection.
First Things First: Do You Want to Do This Yourself?
Unless you outsource ...
