Collection agency management that grades every agency weekly — and places next month’s accounts by the grades
Agency problems seen this week, not at the annual audit.
See one case, screen by screen ↓Software a lender uses to place accounts with outside collection agencies and law firms, and to oversee them: results, conduct, complaints, remittances and audits. Collection Agency Management grades every agency weekly on four measures, opens each grade onto its evidence, and proposes next month’s placement from the grades.
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A lender stays responsible for what its collection agencies and law firms say and do. Yet oversight runs on monthly remittance spreadsheets, a sample of call recordings, an annual audit and complaint data that arrives weeks after the call. A script error can run for a month before anyone hears it.
And a complaint count says something went wrong, not which calls, which team or which script. Fees taken at the wrong contract rate, and payments collected but not remitted, are found at audit, months later. Meanwhile placement shares are reset by spreadsheet, so next month’s accounts go to the same agencies in the same shares, whatever their results or conduct.
Estimated split of an agency team’s month across six agencies, by hand and with the solution.
Six agents read every call, remittance and complaint and grade each agency weekly; the agency manager signs placement.
Bellmere Bank’s primary pool — 38,420 charged-off accounts, $96.3M — sits with six agencies. On Monday 12 October, week 41’s evidence is in. Here is what happens next, screen by screen, in the working solution.
Dana opens the agency scorecard: six agencies ranked by score, each graded on liquidation, complaints, call compliance and remittance accuracy, with a 13-week ribbon under every grade and the placement share for October and November. Week 41’s evidence was in by 06:40 — 21,860 recorded calls, 6 September remittance files, 3 new complaints and 2 audit responses.
“Six agents read all of it and re-grade every agency. Nothing is sent to an agency until a person decides.”
The call reviewer reads all 21,860 calls and sends 37 to a person, 5 of them critical, all at Calder Point. The remittance reconciler ties 6 files to 14,212 posted payments. The placement allocator re-proposes November. Calder Point’s call compliance drops from B to C, marked provisional, and Ashby & Lowe’s remittance from A to C.
“Calder Point · November placement 20% → 0% — conduct gate · 972 accounts to the others.”
The C opens its evidence: 4,310 calls read, 5 critical, 3 minor, and no critical finding in the 12 weeks before. Four inbound callbacks never said “this is a debt collector” before the account was discussed. All four were handled by Team 6 — 11 collectors who started 14 Sep — on script 3.2 “Inbound callback”, issued 28 Sep.
“Script 3.1 opened with ‘This is a communication from a debt collector.’ 3.2 does not.”
Priya opens the first call, from Monday 5 October at 10:14: account ••4471, collector Jared Ortega, 6 minutes 12. Right party verified at 00:08, recording notice at 00:18 — then at 00:21 the collector discusses the Bellmere Visa balance of $3,862.17. The disclosure is marked where it should have been, beside the two script versions.
“Disclosure missing. The account and balance are discussed here; ‘this is a communication from a debt collector’ was never said. Reg F § 1006.18(e).”
Priya presses Confirm finding, and the call reads “Confirmed · Priya Sandhu” — 1 of 5 Calder Point findings. Until a person confirms, a critical finding stays provisional — the grade is marked provisional, and the finding counts only toward holding back new placements.
Call review lists the week’s findings by agency and severity. The fifth Calder Point finding is a dialer campaign: account ••5532 got 8 call attempts in 7 days. The Wednesday call is linked to CMP-2291, from the CFPB portal, and ••5532 to CMP-2295, a letter to the bank — each with its 15-day clock.
CMP-2291: “I asked if they were a debt collector and they would not say.”
Every line is tied to a posted payment and the contract fee. 41 paid-in-full accounts from the primary pool were billed at the 25% secondary rate instead of 18% under amendment 2 — $4,911.90 on $70,170 collected. Three payments posted on the agency’s system and confirmed by the bank’s lockbox — ••3318, ••7206, ••4459 — are missing from the file.
“The remittance reconciler proposes; you decide. Money is never offset without your instruction.”
Calder Point’s profile shows the recommendation from the placement allocator and the performance analyst. No new accounts in November. Keep the 8,730 accounts already placed — a full recall would give up about $410,000 of expected recoveries, at 11.2% liquidation. Recall only the 5 accounts touched by findings. Script 3.3 restores the line, Team 6 is retrained and all its calls get a second review for 30 days, with evidence due Fri 23 Oct.
4,860 accounts, $12.4M charged off in October, to be placed on 2 November. Each agency is scored from its four grades; Calder Point is held at 0% by the conduct gate. Alder Ridge stops at its 35% capacity, Pinecrest rises to 34%, Ashby & Lowe 14%, Quillan 12%, Ostrander 5%.
“Calder Point gets no new accounts while its call compliance is below 80.”
Dana reviews the shares, accounts and balances and signs the November placement. Pausing new placements to an agency needs a second signature, so it goes to Graham Whitlow, head of recoveries. The placement files are sent on 2 November, after both signatures — the problem caught this week, not at the annual audit.
“Pausing new placements to Calder Point needs a second signature from Graham Whitlow, head of recoveries.”
The same week of agency evidence, seen by the five people who act on it — what their week looked like, and what it looks like now.
Six agents read every call, remittance and complaint and grade each agency weekly; the agency manager signs placement.
Reads every recorded agency call for the disclosures and limits in Regulation F — right party, recording notice, the debt-collector disclosure, call time, attempts in 7 days, threats and false statements — and links each finding to the collector, team and script.
Reads complaints from the CFPB portal, letters, calls and state regulators, and links each to its account, agency and call.
Ties every remittance line to a posted payment and the contract fee rate, and explains each variance.
Measures liquidation on like-for-like placements by vintage, and estimates what a recall would cost in recoveries.
Reads audit questionnaires and evidence against each contract and flags what is missing.
Proposes each month’s placement shares from the scores, the conduct gate and capacity caps, and shows the change from last month and the accounts that move.
Confirms and signs. The agents propose; a named person decides.
Ask about any agency, grade, call or remittance — or say what to recall. Every answer points to the calls, files and contracts behind it.
Why did Calder Point’s compliance grade drop?
Call compliance went from B (86) to C (74) this week. Of 4,310 calls, four inbound callbacks never said “this is a debt collector” before the account was discussed — Mon 10:14, Tue 14:52, Wed 09:31, Thu 16:07. All four were Team 6 on script 3.2, issued 28 Sep without the line 3.1 had. Separately, ••5532 got 8 attempts in 7 days. Calder still liquidates well: 11.2% against 9.8% for the pool.
Where should November’s placements go?
November is 4,860 accounts, $12.4M. With conduct weighted at 45%, Calder Point is held at 0% by the conduct gate and Alder Ridge stops at its 35% capacity. You sign; Graham co-signs the pause.
Is Ashby & Lowe remitting the right money?
Not in September. The file is $7,056.90 short: 41 paid-in-full accounts were billed at the 25% secondary rate instead of 18% — $4,911.90 on $70,170 collected — and three payments posted on their system ($2,145) are missing from the file. It is the same cause as the open August audit finding. I would ask for a corrected file by 16 October and offset it against October if it does not come.
Recall the five Calder Point accounts with findings
Ready for your signature: ••4471, ••9083, ••2265, ••7718 and ••5532. Contract § 5.1 lets you recall any account on 5 business days’ notice. Five is within your 50-account limit, so no second signature. The other 8,730 stay with Calder — a full recall would give up about $410,000 of expected recoveries.
13 screens from the working solution, on its sample data. Pick one to see it large.
How agencies are graded and how placement follows the grades are settings, saved as a new rule version each time they change.
| Setting | Default | Choose from |
|---|---|---|
| Weights | Liquidation 40 · call compliance 25 · complaints 20 · remittance 15 | Weight on conduct in 5-point steps; results 55 · conduct 45 by default |
| Grade bands | A ≥ 90 · B ≥ 80 · C ≥ 70 · D < 70 | Score out of 100 on each measure |
| Conduct gate | Call compliance or complaints below 80: no new placements | On · off; lifted when remediation evidence is accepted |
| Provisional findings count for the gate | On — for new placements only | On · off |
| Calls read | Every recorded call | Every recorded call · 25% sample · 5% sample |
| Critical findings to a person | Within 1 business day | Same day · within 1 business day · within 2 business days |
| Remittance tolerance | $250 per file | $100 · $250 · $500 per file |
| Second signature — pausing an agency, or recalling more than 50 accounts | Head of recoveries | Head of recoveries · chief risk officer |
Every figure is labelled: a target the solution is built to, an estimate, a typical published result, or a proven one.
“demo” = seen in the working solution, on its sample week of agency evidence · “target” = the design goal, measured in the live solution · “estimated” = our estimate · “typical” = published figures (CFPB FDCPA Annual Report 2025 — 207,800 debt collection complaints in 2024, and 51% of communication-tactics complaints about frequent or repeated calls; TSI DebtNext, a collections software vendor — results differ 2–5× between the best and worst agency). Rules cited are 12 CFR 1006 (Regulation F). People, the bank, the agencies, law firms and borrowers named on this page are fictional — characters and sample data in the working solution.
Software a lender uses to place accounts with outside collection agencies and law firms, and to oversee them: results, conduct, complaints, remittances and audits. Collection Agency Management grades every agency weekly on four measures, opens each grade onto its evidence, and proposes next month’s placement from the grades.
On liquidation (net, on like-for-like placements), complaints per 1,000 accounts over 90 days, call compliance across every recorded call, and remittance accuracy against posted payments and the contract fee. The default weights are 40, 20, 25 and 15, and the bands are A ≥ 90, B ≥ 80, C ≥ 70 and D below 70.
Every recorded call. Recordings arrive nightly by secure file transfer; the call reviewer checks right-party verification, the recording notice, the debt-collector disclosure, call time, attempts in 7 days, and threats or false statements, and sends critical findings to a person within one business day.
The placement allocator proposes; people decide. If call compliance or complaints fall below 80, the conduct gate proposes no new accounts for that agency until remediation evidence is accepted. The agency manager signs the placement, and a pause needs the head of recoveries as a second signature.
No. The remittance reconciler explains each variance and proposes a correction — request a corrected remittance, or offset against the next one — and the agency manager decides. No agent contacts a consumer, a collector or an agency.
Yes. The scorecard switches between agencies on primary placements and law firms on suit placements, and law firms sit on the same audit calendar, with their own findings — for example affidavits filed with a stale itemization date.
Yes. The collections compliance manager confirms every critical finding from the call itself, the agency manager signs placement and recalls up to 50 accounts, and the head of recoveries co-signs a pause or a larger recall. Every rule change is saved as a new version.
The Agentic Solution Engine builds and deploys it from your requirements and documents — your agency contracts, scripts, placement policy and a sample of your agency files — and it goes live once every quality gate has passed. We will walk you through it on your own agency panel first.
Every contact inside the 7-in-7 rule, spent where it pays.
1-min demoBorrower Hardship ManagementSame request, same decision, every time, with the reason written down.
1-min demoCollections Agent AssistThe one call the rules allow this week, handled right first time.
1-min demoWe’ll run Collection Agency Management on a month of your own agency calls, remittance files and complaints.