Skip tracing - what is it and how to use it?

Debt recovery is often a complicated and lengthy process. If we are in contact with the debtor, we can negotiate, request payment, seek help from a debt collection company or bring a court action. However, what if the person who is in arrears with the payment of the obligation disappears - he moves out, changes the e-mail address and telephone number, and we cannot contact him? This does not mean that we no longer have a chance to recover the debt - it is worth using skip tracing in such a situation.

Skip tracing - definition

The term skip tracing comes from the English term skip town, meaning a sudden departure from the city. In practice, it is a search by all permitted methods for debtors who have made a liability, after the expiry of the payment period, they change their place of residence and break contact with the creditor.Interestingly, skip tracing is used not only by private individuals or companies, but also by public administration bodies, such as the British tax office.

Methods used by skip tracers

The most important tool of skip tracing specialists is the Internet. Nowadays, almost everyone leaves a clear trace on the web. The Google search engine, internet forums, and especially social networks - Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Snapchat can tell a lot about each of us. Of course, Facebook is the most significant because of the variety of content it contains. You can not only post photos or information about your life on it, but also mark yourself in certain places, which can be especially important in the context of skip tracing.

Google search engine settings can also help. We do not always use them, but they can help us a lot when looking for information about the debtor - an example may be searching by dates, in news and blogs. We can also search for a debtor by phone number or e-mail address, or use numerous person search engines.

Skip tracing and the debtor's phone number

Regardless of the place of stay, it is easiest to contact the debtor by phone and thus influence him, which is why creditors often most care about finding a new telephone number of the obligated person.

We can search for the debtor's number in search engines, by entering the owner's name or e-mail address. The combination of such data often occurs on auction sites (for example Allegro) or offer sites (for example Gumtree). If this does not work, we can look for a debtor on a social network (it is worth doing this by entering an e-mail address in the social media search engine - many people use pseudonyms on them) and ask for a contact number for him.