Browsing Tag merlin

Press Release | June 2, 2011

KALISPELL, MT – June 2, 2011 – Merlin Information Services recently announced the release of its new Verified Place of Employment (VPOE) solution.  The solution, designed specifically for debt collectors, offers a reliable, cost-effective alternative to the processes collectors use to verify employment today. 

Todd Twete, Merlin’s VP of Sales and Marketing said, “Today’s economy is forcing a change in collection practices… more and more debt collectors are relying on place of employment information to contact the debtor, serve legal process, collect on a judgment, or garnish wages.”

Despite the need for places of employment, many debt collectors have been reluctant to partner with an outsourced vendor to obtain high quality, verified results.  There are several factors affecting this decision including a lack of analytics to truly quantify and track internal costs, plus a belief that debt collectors can do the work more effectively and less expensively than an outsourced partner.  

Debt collectors routinely push low-cost, unverified place of employment data to the floor, asking collectors to research phone numbers and make dozens of calls.   Typically, only 5-10% of the results associated with this approach find a debtor’s actual employer.  The success rates are low because sources of unverified place of employment data typically provide a high percentage of incorrect or outdated information, collectors struggle to ask the right questions, and the associated labor and data costs are high.  “Merlin was eager to embrace the challenge to offer an effective improvement to this methodology,” said Twete.

Thirty years of investigative experience and a proprietary process are leveraged to deliver Merlin’s guaranteed, Verified Place of Employment results.  The VPOE process uses numerous data sources, custom systems and automation, plus high volume phone techniques.  Verified results include employer name, address, and phone number.  Results are guaranteed for 30 days.

Each VPOE engagement begins with a “pilot” to benefit both the debt collector and Merlin.  The pilot runs a statistically significant sample of a debt collector’s portfolio through Merlin’s VPOE process.  The Merlin team analyzes the characteristics of the file, calculates a price for each verified result, and identifies any special resource or scheduling requirements.  In addition, the debt collector has an opportunity to evaluate the accuracy and consistency of the pilot’s results and calculate a return on investment. 

“Based on customer feedback, statistics are showing that Merlin’s VPOE solution is improving debt collectors’ ROI,” said Twete.

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To learn more about Merlin’s new Verified Place of Employment (VPOE) or to inquire about running a pilot, please contact Merlin Information Services at 800- 367-6646 or visit www.merlindata.com.

 

The Litigant Alert is powered by a rapidly growing database of FDCPA, FCRA, TCPA, and other consumer lawsuits filed in U.S. District Courts, as well as some state, county, and local courts. The Litigant Alert uses proprietary logic to find relevant matches to debtors by name, geography, and Social Security number. 

An emerging trend finds that approximately 30% of debtors that have filed consumer litigation have filed more than one lawsuit. As such, agencies are experiencing rapidly escalating legal costs, many of which result from frivolous lawsuits where the FDCPA has not actually been violated. 

“Collection agencies saw a 40% increase in consumer rights lawsuits in 2009,” said Merlin’s VP of Sales and Marketing, Todd Twete. “The Litigant Alert is a tool that will help agencies identify potentially risky debtors in their portfolios. Many of our agency customers understand that identifying these debtors proactively is key to mitigating risk and controlling expenses.” 

A secondary result of the alliance is that the litigants will also be identifiable by appended Social Security numbers. WebRecon CEO, Jack Gordon, comments this is crucial to meeting the needs of the collections market. “Matching by Social Security number has been the number one demand of my customer base. We are continually innovating, but I don’t think there is a single more important thing we could have done than bringing SSNs into the mix. Speaking as a former collection agency owner, I could have saved thousands of dollars with an easy tool like this to pre-empt repeat litigants. I wish we had something like this just 2 or 3 years ago – it would have been tremendously helpful. I am very excited to be working with an equally innovative partner in Merlin to make this extraordinary product even better.” 

About Merlin
Merlin Information Services offers data solutions providing information about people, businesses, and assets. A leader in the investigative data industry, Merlin has a reputation for superior customer service, high ethical standards, excellent data, and flexible search and retrieval software. 

About WebRecon
Creditors and collection firms use WebRecon’s services to easily segregate predictably litigious consumers from their databases. A significant percentage of consumer litigation is initiated by the same consumers over and over again, and screening them out of the general population can reduce lawsuits by as much as a third.