You can find everyone, find out as you wish, if you have the resources and time, you can also do everything: the real address of a specific person, the presence of illegitimate children and mistresses, bank accounts and the amount of money on them. Everything leaves its mark, everything is found sooner or later.
Oleksandr Zhukov
Debt repayment is a delicate and at the same time acute topic. Moreover, its relevance has not diminished, probably since the time of primitive man, when one fellow tribesman borrowed a spear from another for hunting a mammoth.
Nerves and time are the two main components that are definitely spent when solving this issue.
Still! Right now, the owner needs money for business development or to fulfill his obligations to other counterparties. And just them and the debtor does not pay for the delivered goods, performed works, rendered services or simply transferred funds as an advance. His wife eats his meal, and somewhere around the corner or in the next room, his mother-in-law rubs her hands with a hideous smile – you can’t take away the debt, so you’re a weakling. And in such nervousness – every day.
Doesn’t it take time to convince the debtor to return the money? Moreover, this applies both to a situation with voluntary repayment, and in a forced manner, through the court, the state executive service or a private executor.
In this case, the apparent absurdity of the situation is that in order to repay the debt, you need to part with some hard-earned amount.
One small but important explanation must be made here: the creditor has every right to demand that the expenses be covered by the debtor. Actually, in practice, about 80% of the costs are charged to the debtor. The main thing is to provide an evidence base.
“All of the above to a greater extent relevant for legal entities, ranging from small companies to large corporations, agricultural holdings, because relations with business partners (including, unfortunately, with impure ones) are regulated by more than one or two contracts. Sometimes this figure reaches a hundred or more in just one month. As you understand, the financial turnover in inter-contractual relations is also, to put it mildly, not small.”
The real problem in the issue of debt recovery for an inexperienced creditor is the process of successful negotiations with fraudsters – a separate category of persons who are not simply not inclined to dialogue, it is quite difficult to find them physically, and it takes even longer to collect the debt. Is it necessary to say that the chances of voluntarily raising the white flag on their part are extremely small?
For example, let’s take several methods as an effective alternative in negotiations with fraudsters. Why with them? Because if you deal with a fraudster, other categories of debtors will not be a serious problem for you.
Stage one. One, two, three, four, five, I’m going to find you!
Jokes are jokes, but in practice, most creditors who have fallen into the trap of fraudsters and “throwers” are faced with the primary need to find them. It is clear to everyone that in order to start negotiations on debt repayment, you must first find the right person.
Specialists dealing with legal issues, including debt collection, always have their own methods of finding people and the necessary information in their arsenal, especially in the era of modern digital technologies and the Internet.
You can find everyone, you can find out everything if you wish, if you have resources and time: the real address of a particular person, the presence of illegitimate children and a mistress, bank accounts and the amount of money on them. Everything leaves its mark, everything is found sooner or later. By the way, real professionals can “force” the debtor to come into contact with him for negotiations and, note, only by legal methods and methods – no crime.
We will not reveal our secrets in finding the right people, the real location of the company (believe me, they are quite effective for us). As for information about the status of a person, the availability of movable and immovable property, other data, open, that is, public, registers of Ukraine can help everyone. Currently, there are more than a hundred of them. And these are only official ones. Yes, some of them are not structured, work in test mode, access to information in which is difficult. But this is the technical side of the issue. By the way, open registers make it possible to protect business from unscrupulous partners to a certain extent before concluding a deal.
We will conditionally accept the fact that a complex of measures (calls, social networks on the Internet, letters to e-mail, close contact with relatives of the debtor, etc.) made it possible to find the debtor. Even if he is antisocial, without special ties in society, you can find a person. For this, it is simply necessary to expand this same set of measures.
Drawing an intermediate line, you can focus on two final options for the development of events:
- You (or the specialist you turned to) find the debtor yourself.
- You force the debtor to contact you directly.
The second option is much better, because in this case it is not you who needs the negotiations, but them.
Stage two. A set of trump cards up his sleeve
As you understand, it was not enough to find the debtor or force him to enter into a dialogue with you. Importantly “to have as many trump cards up one’s sleeve as possible.” Otherwise, a large-scale idea will be nothing, i.e. zero, an empty place, even more negativity from the time and effort spent.
As an example, we will cite a simple and very common case when a company representative or directly the head of the enterprise (in our case – a fraudster or an unscrupulous debtor) received some product / service (or an advance for the performance of work), knowingly, that is, in advance, knowing that the money was to be given he has no intention, in any case not completely and not in the established terms (accordingly, no work will be performed by them). It makes no sense now to talk about how the debtor managed to get money without serious guarantees – the so-called case is in the past. As a matter of fact, we have a creditor’s headache, sleepless nights, and … a wickedly smiling mother-in-law in addition…
“The year passed like an empty dream, the Tsar married another woman” – these are Pushkin’s poems. The king was lucky. A year later, the result was not long in coming – a young wife: “tall, slender, white, and she took it with her mind and everything.” In our example, a year later, nothing has changed – the initial promises to repay the debt remained promises. It is necessary to make up for lost time – urgently start searching for the debtor’s property and accounts. Let’s not forget about the wife’s property and other assets (this is important!). By the way, you can’t do without a specialist here.
The collected and analyzed information showed that the debtor’s assets include the aforementioned zero: no apartment, no car, no cottage, no official job (not at the time of receiving the loan, but “here and now”, in fact). Shorter, naked as a falcon. Cigarettes, socks, underwear – everything is bought by the wife. But everything is normal with the wife: a good job at Ukroboronprom or a related department, a bank account and everything in a similar spirit.
What do we have today? Everything that the debtor earned through hard work was sold during the period of cohabitation with his wife. Therefore, it is necessary to urgently file a lawsuit for debt collection, and if the court is already considering the case – a petition to include the wife as a co-defendant.
Stage three. Finding optimal tactics for negotiations
With a competent approach, the tactic of involving the other spouse as a co-defendant works. After all, in essence, all property sold and acquired during the period of cohabitation is considered joint. Yes, there are exceptions, and they are specified in the legislation. But this is not the point, but what is called, in principle. It is clear that any case contains a lot of different nuances that need to be taken into account in a specific situation. By the way, in some cases, one more important point should not be forgotten – the marriage contract. Currently, concluding such an agreement is a normal family practice, especially among people of average and above average wealth.
So, sometimes in the marriage contract there is a clause in which it is indicated that the parties undertake to inform their creditors about the existence of this agreement. This is one of the nuances that was discussed earlier. Our fraudster ignored this clause of the marriage contract. Accordingly, the wife knew nothing about the loan. But these, as they say, are their problems. And our benefit (specialists who provide legal assistance to the creditor) is to use the opportunity to seize the accounts and property of not only the debtor, but also his wife.
Simple logic suggests: if the profit from the sale by the fraudster (husband) of family property, for example, a car, settles in the common family cauldron, then why should only he pay for the debts by taking a loan? Such, to tell the truth, simple arguments are quite often listened to by the court, making decisions about the seizure of property and bank accounts of both spouses.
All that remains is to write a statement to the enforcement service about the enforcement of the court order and … wait for a call from the fraudster or his “second half”. The tactic should work. An ancient saying of the sage Lao-Tzu says: “If you sit on the bank of a river for a long time, you can see how the corpse of your enemy will float by.” In our case, you won’t have to wait long for the debtor’s reaction – we are sure that after some time either he or his wife will get in touch themselves, initiating negotiations.
Stage four. The art of negotiation
There are several unspoken rules for successful negotiations. Here, a lot depends on the circumstances, the character of the person himself and … “trumps up the sleeve”.
One of them (rules) says that each round of negotiations should be approached thoroughly, prepared, with the maximum amount of information about the “enemy” and, most importantly, its relevance. The negotiation process cannot be left to its own devices. There must be a plan. In most cases, the impromptu will not pass, except for an unforeseen turn of events directly in the process of communication.
Some negotiators and those who give lectures on the theory of negotiations recommend giving the opponent an opportunity to put forward his conditions, to invite counter-offers. But this is not our case. This cannot be allowed with swindlers and unscrupulous debtors. Let anyone put forward conditions: his wife (if he is not a “heeler”), children, subordinates at work, Uncle Vasya from the next door … everyone, but not you (or not us, if we represent your interests).
Now the ball is in our side of the field and we have everything in order with the technique of possession of the ball. As a result, you can conclude a settlement agreement on favorable terms, and the court will approve them. Everyone is satisfied, everyone is happy. Of course, we will refrain from mutual kisses, we are satisfied with “world peace” (on our terms). Now it will be extremely problematic for the debtor to “jump off”, since the “shadow of Hamlet’s father” (in our case – the risk of allocating half of the jointly acquired property) exists, has not evaporated and has not disappeared until the moment of full repayment of the debt.
That’s about it. It is worth repeating that each case is individual, with a lot of nuances and requires its own special approach. How and what to do – I know well. However, if necessary, you can make sure of this yourself by using our debt collection, negotiation, and mediation services. Oleksandr Zhukov has extensive experience in settling disputes related to the collection of problematic debts
