All skip tracing data is the same, right? Not exactly. While there are many sources of consumer contact data available to debt collectors, the quality, freshness, depth and breadth can vary significantly. Just as importantly, what you ultimately do or don’t do with the data depends on several factors such as: Whether or not the debt is worth your while to pursue How deep and fresh the data is What if no skip data is available, and, What happens if there is no new information available when you go to your skip-tracing vendor requesting new leads? So what’s the best way for your company to locate debtors? What data sources are right for you? Check out my recent article in Collections and Credit Risk for some helpful advice, and be sure to check out our other debt collection industry blog posts for best practices, tips and tricks on ways to recover more debt, faster. What data sources do you find most beneficial to your business and why? Let us know by commenting below.

The December release of the S&P/Experian Consumer Credit Default Indices, a comprehensive measure of changes in consumer credit defaults, showed the national composite* increased for the second consecutive month, reaching 1.64 percent in November. The first mortgage default rate also continued its increase, moving from 1.47 percent in October to 1.58 percent in November. All other loan types – auto loans, bankcard and second mortgage – posted decreases in their default rates in November.

Bankcard originations have continued to increase, with Q3 2012 originations increasing 32 percent over Q3 2011. On average, 66 percent of the population now holds one or more bankcards. However, the percentage of consumers who have a bankcard varies greatly by VantageScore® tier: