AGoodEmployee.com - The Fastest Way to Screen Job Applicants

Web-Based Employment Screening Service Delivers Results with a Click; One-Stop Source for Background Checks, Drug Testing, References & More

PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif., Sept. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- A new Internet-based employment screening service called AGoodEmployee.com is simplifying the process of weeding out untrustworthy job applicants by enabling employers to order the background checks of their choice with a few clicks and receive most results online in minutes. The service significantly reduces cost and turnaround time, offers easy Web access to reports, and provides a full spectrum of options from criminal and motor vehicle database searches to drug screening.

Services range from a basic $4.95 report that instantly verifies the applicant's Social Security number and related information to prevent identity fraud, to a comprehensive $99.95 package that adds multiple criminal background checks, comparison to terrorist and sex offender databases, and verification of education and employment credentials. That package also includes an exclusive national address verification feature that identifies an applicant's prior addresses to permit a comprehensive criminal search.

Results are posted on a secure section of http://www.AGoodEmployee.com that can be accessed only by the prospective employer. All information on a given applicant is aggregated into a single file that can be viewed on a 24x7x365 basis and allows employers to add their own notes. Reports are archived on the system for three years. Quantity discounts are available for larger employers.

Screening at Internet speed: "Most employment screening programs that claim to offer online service have an Internet front end but do not actually deliver results in real time or post them online for convenient and centralized retrieval," said Jeff Cronrod, President of Fidelity Information Corporation, an information services company that operates AGoodEmployee.com.

"Our service enables employers to determine which applicants have skeletons in their closet almost instantly, and we offer every available screening mechanism in one place so that it is not necessary to go to different sources for different kinds of inquiries," Cronrod noted. "With up to one-third of job candidates reputed to falsify information on their applications, these efficiencies can significantly expedite the process of eliminating risky candidates from the hiring pool." Full suite of services: AGoodEmployee.com offers nearly a dozen different screening services on an a la carte or bundled basis.

These include:

-- County-level criminal background checks ($29.95 with Social Security number verification), a manual service performed by a network of trained court researchers because electronic databases are not available at the county level. Reports include both charges and convictions.

-- National address verification ($4.95), a real-time search of multiple databases that identifies prior addresses dating back up to 20 years to aid in pinpointing local jurisdictions that should be searched for criminal records. -- State and nationwide criminal background checks ($9.95 and $19.95, respectively), real-time services designed to uncover criminal convictions that would not be spotted in county-only searches. Both services include checks of registered sex offenders in 35 states and terrorists around the world.

-- Driving record checks ($19.95), a real-time service that surveys Department of Motor Vehicle records for DUI incidents, traffic violations, and drivers license status including commercial drivers licenses. This service is critical for positions that involve driving on the employer's behalf.

-- Drug screening ($30), utilizing a nationwide network of collection sites with a 24- to 48-hour turnaround time. Both 5- and 10-panel drug screens are available, and employers can select either traditional on-site urine collection or an off-site saliva test that is overnighted to the testing agency.

-- Employment verification, education verification and reference checking ($14 each), all conducted by phone and initiated within 24 hours of the request. Employment verification covers employment dates, position, compensation and rehire status. Education verification covers attendance, graduation date, course of study, degree, and grade point average. Reference checking includes personal interviews with friends, supervisors and others.

-- Credit bureau checks, a real-time service available exclusively to larger employers at a quantity discount. The service surveys the three major credit bureaus and returns information on credit history as well as tax liens, bankruptcies and judgments. It also confirms date of birth and, in some cases, address, Social Security number and place of employment.

For more information, visit http://www.AGoodEmployee.com .

Innovative Collection Business Uses Web-Based System to Eliminate Contingency Fees, Collects 'Soft' Debts Quickly

PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif., July 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Organizations that want to pursue delinquent accounts without handing over a portion of the proceeds can now turn to OldDebts.com, an online debt collection service that eliminates the need to pay contingency fees to a traditional collection agency. The flat-fee service personalizes, prints and mails collection letters for as little as $6.95 per debt and optionally reports debtors to the three major credit bureaus, offering a fast and economical method of bringing debtors to heel.

Launched by Fidelity Information Corporation, a fully accredited collection agency, OldDebts.com remains the only collection service to combine the cost benefits of flat-fee pricing with the self-serve efficiencies of the Internet. Clients range from small retail, service and home-based businesses to schools, sororities and fraternities, attorneys, physicians, franchises, associations, and large companies of all kinds.

Direct debt collection: "At any given time we may have a couple hundred customers who have not responded to multiple invoices, and in the past we used a collection service that required a $5,000 minimum," said Pam Brightman, office administrator at Industrial Electric Service in Huntington Beach, CA. "We switched to OldDebts.com in early 2001 because there was no minimum fee and because we can handle all administrative functions online. It's saved us an enormous amount of money, and it has been quite successful in getting delinquent customers to pay up."

Debtors are instructed to pay creditors directly, enabling the individual or organization owed the money to retain complete control. There are no minimum, commission, membership, setup or account fees.

Easy administration: To begin the debt collection process, creditors submit debtor information online to OldDebts.com. Information can be entered manually, uploaded from the creditor's database, or emailed to the service in database form. From that point on, creditors have access to a personal account directory and bookkeeping journal for every debtor account for easy payment tracking and notekeeping. Registration and account access are free.

Multiple letter packages: A one-letter package from OldDebts.com costs $6.95, while progressively demanding four-letter packages range from $5.95 to $16.95 per package depending on the type and quantity ordered. Different packages are available for consumer products and services, judgments, dishonored checks, and commercial debtors. For debtors who have agreed to a payment plan, there is also a $24.95 package that will mail a payment reminder once a month for up to 12 months.

All letters are professionally laser-printed and customized with the debtor's name and debt information. All fees include postage, return envelope, and perforated payment stub.

Credit bureau reporting and other options: In addition to purchasing packages of collection letters, clients can elect to have OldDebts.com report consumer debtors to the Equifax, Experian and TransUnion credit bureaus for $3 per package. Old Debts.com can also make courtesy reminder calls to debtors shortly after the second collection letter is sent ($12 per package); automatically forward letters to a new address if the debtor has moved ($1 per package); and order consumer credit reports that can assist in difficult debt collections ($15 per package).

"OldDebts.com is a fast and inexpensive strategy for weeding out 'soft' debtors from those that may require more traditional and aggressive methods," said Jeff Cronrod, President of Fidelity Information Corporation. "It gives creditors a way to collect debts directly and eliminate the middleman with virtually no administrative overhead, nominal cost, and no need to split the proceeds. These are enormous advantages."

For more information, visit www.OldDebts.com .

Security is an easy sell in real estate web management
Bill Archambeault
Journal Staff

Web-based systems appear to be growing in popularity in the real estate industry, as ...

"In these changing times, and with a closed-building philosophy and security concerns, having that information for your tenants online and being able to update it is very important," Childs said. "Having information is power. We're trying to give property managers as much information as possible so they can make decisions based on information and not on gut reactions."

Security is also a growing business for Fidelity Information Corp. (no relation to the local financial giant). The Los Angeles-based company's TenantAlert screens potential residential tenants for suspected terrorists, sex offenders and other criminals, in addition to more routine reviews of a person's eviction history and credit.

The company already operates in Boston, but has targeted the city as one of its prime sites for expansion.

"It's an important metropolitan market for us," said president Jeff Cronrod. "It's one of maybe eight cities on the top of our list. We already have a good presence for a West Coast company, and we definitely want to expand it."

Last call for likely sites

In Massachusetts' ...

... for land sites include city sewer and water service, zoning for laboratory, R&D or manufacturing, natural gas, power for at least 30 watts per square foot (and more for manufacturing uses) and parking for three cars per 1,000 square feet of space (unless there is access to public transportation).

BILL ARCHAMBEAULT is the real estate reporter for the Boston Business Journal. He can be reached by e-mail at BArchambeault@bizjournals.com.

TenantAlert, a New Online Tenant Screening Service, Speeds Reviews and Lowers Risk With Unique Colorblind Scoring Systems

Thursday August 14, 11:25 am ET
Includes Industry's Most Thorough Credit & Background Checks

PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif., Aug. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Apartment owners and managers can now expedite and improve the tenant screening process with TenantAlert (www.TenantAlert.com ), a new Internet-based tenant screening service that instantly evaluates each prospective renter against national consumer credit data, criminal and eviction databases, two separate colorblind scoring systems designed to predict tenant reliability, and a variety of other criteria. The service saves time, significantly lowers landlords' risk because of its comprehensiveness, and costs as little as $9.95 per report.
" Traditional tenant screening may take several days and frequently miss key information that can help identify potentially undesirable tenants, and it can leave property owners and managers open to charges of discrimination," said Jeff Cronrod, President of Fidelity Information Corporation, which operates the TenantAlert service. "TenantAlert solves these problems with fast online results, the most thorough and wide-ranging credit and reference checks available today, and exclusive statistical tools to help manage risk."

All TenantAlert reports include consumer credit information from one or more of the three major credit bureaus -- Experian, Equifax or Transunion. Registered TenantAlert clients also have free access to information on delinquent payment histories, property damage, chronic violations, criminal activity, and other types of disturbances reported to the Delinquent Tenant Cooperative. Registered users also can instantly report delinquent tenants to the three bureaus and the Delinquent Tenant Cooperative.

In addition, TenantAlert offers packages with various options that include:

• An exclusive colorblind MatchMaker scoring system that enables landlords to establish their preferred tenant profile based on more than 20 different parameters. The system evaluates each applicant according to those criteria and instantly returns a "recommend" or "not recommend."
• A credit-based TenantAlert Predictor Score (TAPS) that automatically evaluates the credit information provided by the credit bureaus and translates it into a numerical score indicating the financial risk of renting to that particular applicant.
• Eviction/public record checks against all available nationwide databases covering money judgments, possession-only judgments, skips, and property damage claims as well as eviction filings.
• National criminal background searches, including checks of sexual offender and terrorist databases as well as cross-checking of personal information for criminal record verification.
• Fraud detection and personal information verification, ranging from comparison of information provided by the applicant against that provided on credit reports, to social security number verification, national address history, and bankruptcy searches.
• Credit grantor names and addresses, giving property owners immediate access to all of a prospective tenant's creditors for additional information.

All account usage data is available online at any time, enabling property owners to search account activity by date, tenant name or building name in order to compare it to their credit card bills, calculate their rental traffic, or evaluate a manager's performance.

TenantAlert also has established strategic alliances with TenantMail (www.TenantMail.com ) and Rent Recovery Service (www.ABadTenant.com ) for a complete tenant management solution. TenantMail helps ensure timely rent payments by automatically invoicing tenants every month. Rent Recovery Service offers programs for recouping delinquent rent, including a unique flat-fee system that significantly lowers the cost of pursuing delinquent tenants by eliminating contingency fees.

For more information on TenantAlert's online tenant screening service, visit www.TenantAlert.com .

Easing the Collection Of Overdue Payments

July 10, 2003
By Jeff Bailey

You got the sale, shipped the goods, and now all you have to do is wait to get paid. And wait. And wait.

In this tough economy, slow-pays and no-pays are on the rise, as both consumers and businesses delay paying bills to conserve cash. For smaller companies, operating with a thin cushion of working capital, being stiffed by a few customers can cause a cash crisis.

What's more, many firms that came of age during the go-go 1990s, when most customers were flush with cash, are for the first time facing the problem of collecting past-due accounts receivable.

Law firm Berry, Appelman & Leiden LLP, of San Francisco, saw its immigration practice boom during the 1990s as technology firms sought hard-to-find talent from overseas. The technology bust, however, brought much of that work to a halt, and some clients were going bankrupt.

"It was kind of rough," says Robert Pacheco, director of finance for the 20-lawyer firm. About 35% of billings were seriously delinquent two years ago.

The firm hired a collections coordinator, LaVonne Maliga, formalized what had been an informal and ineffective process, and saw its problem receivables decline to 5%. Cash flow is up. "Nobody likes to get stiffed," Mr. Maliga says.

So, some tips:

Know your customer. Is the business or person you're selling to solvent? Do they pay their bills on time? You can ask around or try buying credit information on customers from such firms as D&B. Either way, don't be embarrassed to ask a new customer about his bill-paying process and habits. Chances are, he asks his customers the same questions.

The bigger the customer, the bigger the risk. Many entrepreneurs are so happy to make a sale to a big company that they're too shy to bring up payment terms. Or they assume a big company will promptly pay its bills. But some big firms view dragging out payment, particularly to vulnerable little suppliers, as "creative cash management," says Jeff Cronrod, president of Fidelity Information Corp., a Los Angeles firm that does a variety of customer evaluation and collection work for real-estate owners and other firms.

"They do it because they can. And because big guys are in [financial] trouble, too. People just don't know it," says Mr. Cronrod.

With each customer, it's a good idea to ask yourself: If I get stiffed, how much will it hurt? And then protect yourself accordingly.

Communicate. Is your sales staff, which probably knows a lot about the customers, including any financial problems, talking to your collections staff? And is your company talking to customers about unpaid bills? A rule of thumb: The longer a bill goes unpaid, the more likely it is you'll never see the money. So, as Mr. Cronrod says, "don't wait." Start calling or writing as soon as a bill is past due.

Have a system, and follow it. Your firm should have a set schedule for escalating collection efforts. At Vision Improvement Technologies LLC, a Fairfield, Iowa, firm that markets a $279 videotaped guide to eye exercises via an 800 number advertised on television and radio, customers have 30 days to try the video out and either start paying or send it back.

Ten percent don't do either, and they immediately get a phone call, says Gary Korf, chief financial officer. Half of those then pay or return the tapes. The other half get a letter or are turned over to a collection agency. Just having the system in place, Mr. Korf says, hastens collections.

Formalize agreements. A written agreement to pay helps bring your invoice to the top of the customer's stack. Rob Hammond learned bill collection as a fraternity officer in college. Sometimes a fifth of his brothers were in arrears. And the fraternity had no written agreement. Parents often didn't see the bill as a priority.

"All they see is the 'Animal House' end of it," Mr. Hammond says. Slow-pays could be barred from keggers and other events, but "that was about all that was being done."

Today, Mr. Hammond is 28 years old and chief executive of Greek Bill Inc., Redondo Beach, Calif., which handles billings of $7 million a year for about 100 fraternity chapters. His clients use formal agreements. And when bills are past due, both student and parents get collection notices.

It's hard to be your own heavy. The fraternities hire Greek Bill because it's easier for an outside firm to dispassionately demand payment than it is for a house mate. And when Greek Bill meets substantial resistance, it, too, steps aside, passing the obligation along to a collection agency.

Mr. Hammond prefers fee-based collection firms, rather than those that work on a contingency. A year ago he hired one of Mr. Cronrod's firms, OldDebts.com, a unit of Fidelity Information, which allows Greek Bill to type debtor information via the Internet and send out increasingly stern collection letters for a flat fee.

"We get more attention than you would," says Mr. Cronrod. OldDebts.com collects on average 34% of the amounts owed, and that rises to 50% if the client is willing to pay to report the nonpaying customer to credit bureaus.

Be nice. Whether you try to collect yourself or hire someone to do it, professionals say getting angry doesn't help. And threats can get you into trouble.

SHOW: MARKET CALL 09:00 AM Eastern Standard Time

June 11, 2003 Wednesday

Transcript # 061110cb.l05

SECTION: Business

LENGTH: 448 words

HEADLINE: Maverick of the Morning: Time to Round Up Those Old Debts!, CNNfn

GUESTS: Jeff Cronrod

BYLINE: Allan Chernoff

BODY:
ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNNfn ANCHOR, MARKET CALL: While the economy does show signs of a rebound, many companies, especially small businesses, are still feeling the pinch. It's hard for those businesses which need every penny to let at least one debt go uncollected. That's where our "Maverick of the Morning" comes in. He is Jeff Cronrod, he's CEO of Fidelity Information Corporation. It helps small businesses through its service, OldDebts.com.

Jeff good morning to you.

JEFF CRONROD, CEO, FIDELITY INFORMATION: Good morning, Allan, how are you?

CHERNOFF: Very well. Jeff, tell us a little more about how this service works. You advertise it as a very low-cost way to collect debts.

CRONROD: OldDebts.com is a very efficient and economical way for a small or medium-sized business to recover their losses, their past due invoices. Customers are paying a little slower now, the way the economy is. And OldDebts.com gives them an opportunity to go after those slower paying customers, those past due invoices, and as checks (ph), that sort of thing.

CHERNOFF: How exactly does it work? How do you do it? All of a sudden, if I have a small business, go online and I what, send notes to my - to companies that owe me money?

CRONROD: OldDebts.com is fully automated. It's the only online fully automated collection service on the Internet. Essentially, registration is free. Once you go on, you can send a series of collection letters that come from us, a licensed collection agency. You can report to the credit bureaus, the three major bureaus. You can have us do courtesy calls to the debtors. Even pull a copy of a credit report on a consumer, all for a very low flat fee. It's real efficient, very economical, and it's an instant response. It's fully automated.

CHERNOFF: Do you find that debtors respond to this, though?

CRONROD: Yes, it's been remarkably successful. In fact, the letters that we use online are the same ones we use in our core business and they've been very successful. We've been using for about 12 years offline, so it's .

CHERNOFF: Jeff, what's the percentage return that small businesses do get when they use your service?

CRONROD: Well, we're finding on the online service, they're ranging anywhere from around 20 to about 28 percent response if they just use the letter package. If they choose to report to the credit bureaus on consumers over a longer period of time, it's much higher. So we give them that facility as well.

CHERNOFF: Jeff Cronrod, thank you very much for joining us.

CRONROD: Thank you Allan.

The Miami Herald
Sunday, July 6, 2003, FINAL EDITION

CREDIT RISK, TERROR RISK?
Agencies Scan “Wanted” Lists
By Douglas Hanks III
dhanks@herald.com

Do you pay your bills on time? How much debt do you carry? Are you a terrorist?

Credit bureaus are asking a grim new question in drafting financial scorecards for apartment hunters, car shoppers, mortgage applicants and others undergoing routine checks of their fiscal trustworthiness.

Along with the standard searches of payment histories, bankruptcy records and civil judgments, the private-sector bureaus have started offering access to the government’s list of accused terrorists.

It’s a new feature for a new age of vigilance and paranoia – and one experts say is of little use, since the terrorist list is posted on the Internet and unlikely to snare anyone.

But the terror-check products come amid new efforts by the federal government to force companies into trying to root out terrorists among their customers. And with the FBI naming apartments as potential terrorist targets, credit bureaus are banking on the watch-list searches finding a receptive audience with landlords.

“It’s absolutely a competitive advantage at this point,” says Jeff Cronrod, president of Fidelity Information Corp., a California-based research and collections agency that in recent months added a terrorist search to its tenant screening reports.

Katie Mochan, who runs background checks on prospective tenants and buyers for clients of Land Cap Property Services in Kendall, waits about 20 seconds to see if an applicant is among the world’s most notorious outlaws. So far, so good, though the Fidelity searches still leave her unsettled.

“You not only have to check for felons, but you have to check for terrorists today,” Mochan said. “It’s a little bit scary, especially now that I have a child.”

Whether the new searches by Fidelity and its competitors in the credit-checking industry actually increase security remains in doubt. The companies run names through a list of more than 300 accused terrorists compiled by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.

- 1 -
The list catalogs individuals and organizations with alleged terrorist ties. Osama Bin Laden is on the list, as is Saddam Hussein, sons Odai and Qusai, and the rest of the 55 most-wanted Iraqis in the Defense Department’s well-publicized deck of cards.

Unlike the secret no-fly lists used by airlines to screen passengers, these rogues’ galleries are public and available at www.treasury.gov. So to be flagged in a credit check, a terrorist would have to use a real name or known alias and presumably be unaware of his presence on the OFAC list.

“Only if you’re under the influence of some foreign drug would you do that,” said Tom Cash, a money-laundering expert in the Miami office of Kroll, a security firm that operates nationwide. “There’s no question that persons of deviant behavior would know they’re on the list and use a second or third identity.”

Credit bureaus can’t lower the credit rating for someone who shows up on a terrorist-watch list, since they are only allowed to consider certain sources of financial information. But, like criminal background checks, bureaus are offering terrorist screenings as an add-on feature to the reports.

The American Civil Liberties Union has criticized the use of terror-watch lists to check the movements of average citizens, since the bad-guy rosters are based on government accusations, not criminal charges or convictions.

The USA Patriot Act, anti-terrorism legislation passed in October 2001, toughened those controls, requiring the institutions to look more closely at their customers’ backgrounds and financial dealings.

Federal officials are in the process of expanding the act’s scope to cover a growing list of industries, including casinos, insurers, real estate companies and auto dealers.

Though many of the rules are still moving through the approval process, the new attention has some industries exploring systems for screening against terrorists.

“I think dealers are increasingly looking into ways to check” the OFAC list, said Paul Metrey, director of regulatory affairs with the National Automobile Dealers Association. “I think a lot of them realize it’s important to have some sort of compliance program in place.”

The auto industry and others have protested their coverage by the Patriot Act, saying the requirements will increase costs without adding much to the nation’s domestic security.

Critics see OFAC screening in a similar why-bother light.

“It reminds me of the series of questions we used to get asked at an airport,” said Thomas Hudson, a Maryland lawyer who advises businesses on legal-compliance issues. “Remember that? Basically, ‘Are you carrying a bomb?’”

- 2 -
Though he portrays the OFAC checks as mostly futile exercises, Cash, the security executive, said they are also promising first stabs at a new commercial front against terrorism.

“I think a lot of that psychological prevention has taken hold here: that we have the ability to trip and trap you, Mr. Terrorist,” he said. “It may be at your airport. It may be at your bank. . . . Taken collectively, they will perhaps make people think there are easier targets in other countries than in the United States.”

Using the Internet to Manage Tenants for Peak Cash Flow

Traditionally, the business of managing residential rental properties has been known as “property management,” and the focus has been on brick-and-mortar issues ranging from garbage collection to building maintenance. But that emphasis has neglected the very lifeblood of the rental property business: the tenants who actually pay the freight.

In today’s skittish economy, the need to ensure a steady cash flow from renters is at least as great as the need to control property expenses. That means it is imperative to couple property management with tenant management — a cradle-to-grave term that embraces tenant screening and rent collection as well as the process of recovering monies from delinquent tenants.

The challenge of tenant management is not only to put good procedures in place but also to avoid getting bogged down in paperwork and all the other chores associated with executing those processes. One path that has recently become available is the use of Internet-based services that automate key portions of these processes to save time and frequently produce better results.

Let’s consider each phase of tenant management and how the efficiencies of the Internet are making the job easier.

Tenant screening: Until recently, this was strictly a manual process that required laborious reference checking either by the property manager or by an outsourcing service. There are a variety of problems with both approaches. First, the property manager typically lacks the sophistication to do a thorough evaluation. Second, the process takes several days and often much longer. Third, it leaves property owners and managers open to charges of discrimination.

The first online service to eliminate all of these impediments is Tenant Alert.com (www.TenantAlert.com ). This Internet-based real-time tenant screening service features an exclusive colorblind scoring system called MatchMaker that enables landlords to establish their preferred tenant profile based on more than 20 different parameters. The system evaluates each applicant according to those criteria and instantly returns a “recommend” or “not recommend.”

The service also provides national consumer credit reports and a special scoring system that helps lower landlords’ risk by instantly evaluating the credit criteria provided by the credit bureaus. In addition, it checks applicants against an 11 million+ nationwide eviction database that is the largest in the industry, covering money judgments, possession-only judgments, skips and property damage claims; and performs automated criminal background searches that include cross-checking against sexual offender and terrorist databases.

Registered TenantAlert clients can also use the service to instantly report delinquent tenants to Experian, Equifax and TransUnion as well as the Delinquent Tenant Cooperative, and consult the Cooperative to check any prospective tenant and report any previous tenant at any time.

Rent collection: Another improvement in rental management that has been made possible by the Internet is an automated service designed to help ensure timely rent payments by invoicing tenants every month. This provides an easy reminder that payments are due, elevates rent payments to the same level of importance as car payments, and adds professionalism to the business of apartment management.

TenantMail.com (www.TenantMail.com), the first service of this kind, enables apartment owners and management companies to register and input their rent roll online for free. The service then automatically prints and mails invoices with a return envelope and tear-off payment stub every month for as little as $1 per unit. Custom messages and notes can be added to the invoices for no extra charge.

The beauty of the system is that all processes are automated. Changes in tenancy, rent or dates can be recorded online through the owner or manager’s personal TenantMail account, which can be accessed at any time. The day before printing the month’s invoices, the service even e-mails apartment owners and managers with a list of critical information that will appear on each invoice in case changes must be made.

To streamline the administrative process even further, landlords that are using TenantAlert for screening purposes can add any newly approved tenants to their TenantMail account with just a few mouse clicks.

Rent recovery: Beyond tenant screening and invoicing, the Internet also has opened new options in delinquent rent collection. In addition to traditional contingency-based rent collection services, landlords now have the ability to utilize a Web-based flat fee service that can significantly reduce the cost of pursuing delinquent tenants.

Available through Rent Recovery Service (www.ABadTenant.com), this new flat fee alternative allows property owners to initiate debt collection proceedings simply by setting up an account and inputting information about delinquent tenants online. The tenant then receives one or more collection letters, depending on the option selected, with instructions to pay the property owner directly. The service also automatically notifies the three credit bureaus and the Delinquent Tenant Cooperative of the delinquency.

If the tenant pays the debt, the property owner receives 100% of the amount due, eliminating the need to split the proceeds with the collection agency. The only costs are $16.95 for a one-letter package or $26.95 for a three-letter package that includes an initial letter, a warning letter and a final notice.

If the collection letters sent under the flat fee program fail to secure payment, the property owner or manager can switch to Rent Recovery Service’s more aggressive contingency collection program with one mouse click. And thanks to strategic alliances with TenantAlert.com and TenantMail.com, users of those services can access both Rent Recovery Service’s flat fee and contingency programs by clicking from one site to the next.

Conclusion: The Internet therefore offers new opportunities for efficient tenant management. Property owners and managers can now screen, invoice and initiate collection action against delinquent tenants quickly and cost-effectively through these new online services. It’s just another way that technology is changing the way the world does business.

Fidelity Information Corporation, a nationwide collection agency, has an ASP-style website that allows small business to send collection letters for a flat fee.

by Alex Goldman
ISP-Planet Associate Editor
[July 11, 2003]

Fidelity Information Corporation has a website, olddebts.com, that has been in operation for several years. We ask Jeff Cronrod, president of Pacific Palisades, Calif.-based Fidelity, "Why would someone pay you to send a letter for them when they can take them off your website?" Sample letters are here.

"People pay for a letter from a collection agency (which is cheaper than a letter from an attorney, but similar) to notify a debtor that they're taking this to another level and could ruin their credit," replies Cronrod.

The site has no secrets. It posts samples of the letters that customers buy, and it even posts the prices (although there are volume discounts, as shown). Each "package" listed is usually several letters (often four of them). For four letters, $17.95 (full price for four letters plus change of address if necessary) seems reasonable. The price includes printing, mailing, and return envelope.

A key part of delivering this price is negotiating well with Internet-connected printers. Cronrod explains, "We use large laser printing companies. There are about a dozen we could use, and we have contracts with about three at any time. We send them our data at midnight every night. That's 700 letters on a slow day and 4,000 letters on a good day. They laser print the letters on an 8 ½" x 11" paper with a perforated stub and mail them."

Customers vary widely in size. "We have large national and even international customers. We have small users including a gardener and a Web design firm. Some customers have one problem every 3 months. They're spending $17 every three months, but we're there for them. Others will do two or three thousand in one day."

Cronrod is very satisfied with the ASP model of doing business. "A friend said to me, 'Jeff, it's a 24 hour a day, 7 day a week vending machine.' As soon as he said that," Cronrod jokes, "I put down my fork, which I don't do very often. We were doing tenant screening via fax and I realized we could do a lot more on the Internet."

Building the ASP cost about a quarter of a million dollars, and involved hiring a small, dedicated team with two programmers and a graphic designer at its core. "We built the apps from scratch," says Cronrod, proudly.

The site, now four years old, is undergoing "about its eighth revision." The toughest part of designing the site was interfacing with credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion) and with the printers, because the programmers had no experience working with the proprietary and antiquated systems at the other end. The team also created a simple user interface that can be viewed in the website's demo.

Cronrod feels that xSPs and other tech businesses will warm to the website. "There's almost no industry that cannot use us (except landlords). The biggest obstacle to adoption is that it's only good for people who are Internet savvy, so we feel it would be good to look for people who are savvy because they're in the tech business."

Fidelity, the parent company, is based in California but also has offices in Florida and Ohio. Notes Cronrod, "the Internet has allowed us to not open as many offices as we might have had to."

In three states, it is particularly difficult to collect on debts. The "debtor-friendly" states are Texas, Wyoming, and Florida. Cronrod notes that many debtors, some of them notorious, move to Florida to be able to keep what they own.

It's unusual to be a national collections agency. "Most are small or are mom and pop operations," notes Cronrod. 33 states require "some form of licensing and bonding," he notes, but the rest don't. The state-by-state differences in collections law mean Fidelity has a full time compliance attorney whose job is to keep track of legal changes throughout the USA.

Fidelity, the offline business, does more than just collections. It does tenant screening for landlords, employment screening, and criminal screening for the public. Even the offline business, however, has taken advantage of the printing infrastructure created for olddebts.com. Cronrod says that the online business (and its advertising, which is mostly pay-per-click advertising on search engines) has brought the company customers. "And sometimes, a company will pay for a simple letter and get 30 of 100 debts paid. Then they'll refer the rest to the offline company."

For small businesses, especially those who are tech savvy, Cronrod says the website is ideal. "It's the Internet. It's very convenient. The store's always open."

— End

March, 2003
By Gordon P. Gitlen, Esq., Action President

Our February meeting was again well attended. Our guest speaker Jeff Cronrod, of Rent Recovery Services, the largest landlord collection service in the country, was informative and well received, along with the other speakers, Tom Nitti and Rosario Perry, who presented the membership with legal updates. Recent local activity by the Rent Control Board was addressed as well. The Santa Monica Rent Control Board recently passed Regulation 3304, which would allow for a rent increase if the tenant is not using the controlled residential rental premises as his principle place of residence. The regulation provides, subject to a hearing in front of the Santa Monica Rent Control Board, that rents can be raised to market level. Of course, there are many exceptions that would prevent the increase in rents, but the Rent Control Board has announced a commitment to eliminating the use of controlled residential rental units for tenants that are on permanent vacation. The Board's intention is to pass a local regulation to avoid state legislation in this area. At least the Board recognizes that there are tenants taking improper advantage of their mandate!

Also in the last month, at least one Court determined that if a unit is not rented, then you do not have to pay a registration fee to the Rent Control Board. The Small Claims Court Ruling is not binding on other courts, but this Court reasoned that Rent Control jurisdiction is limited to controlled residential rental units, not those units that are not rented. There is no benefit or detriment to a landlord or tenant and there is no administrative agency work entitling the Board to a fee for units that are not rented.

I have received complimentary feedback regarding our meetings as well as our new meeting location, the Roosevelt Elementary School Auditorium. There is plenty of room for parking as well as for attendance. Our most recent presentations (generally the first Monday of every month) have focused on property owner awareness of the new laws and regulations. New forms are available from the ACTION office, which you must use.

Finally, in light of the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, we must constantly reassess our personal worth. While we would all like to believe that we are the center of our own universe, the stark reality is that we are on a limited journey called life. Earth when viewed from space is a speck of dust and water which is magically and mysteriously molded in a space time continuum. In the words of Deepak Chopra, every human being is part of one people, one life, one consciousness. The totality of nationalism and patriotism divides us in troubled times, yet viewed from the astronauts' window on board the Columbia, we are warring over imagined differences for boundaries that we pretend exist. Every space shuttle crashes to a wounded and mutilated Earth, even when it lands successfully. Thank you, Deepak Chopra. We, at ACTION, however, remain committed to preserving property owners' rights now and for future Americans even in Santa Monica.

Franchise Times
This Side of the Law: Franchisees You Don’t Wanna Know

August 2003

FINANCE: A Line on Collecting Debt Online

The check isn’t in the mail. In fact, there’s been an entire summer vacation between the time the services were delivered and the final notice was ignored. What are the chances of getting the money owed you?

It’s easier than you think, according to Jeff Cronrod, president of Fidelity Information Corp., parent company of a new Web site, www.olddebts.com, an online collection agency that charges a flat fee, rather than a percentage.

Collecting overdue bills, Cronrod says, is often perceived as an unwanted hassle, unless the amount is significant. Letting debts slide, however, is the same thing as letting the customer or client steal from you.

“You deserve to be paid,” Cronrod sys, “but I don’t think a lot of franchisees have the time or expertise to do collections.”

Too often companies rely on the person who sold the services or product to do the collection calls. “The personality of a salesperson is different from that of a collections person,” he says. It’s also hard for salespeople to remain in a positive selling relationship with someone they may have just embarrassed by asking for last month’s check before this month’s shipment could be sent.

The problem with not going after money owed you, Cronrod says, is that word gets out that you’re soft on credit. “It’s a double-edged sword. You want to be known as someone who’s fair,” Cronrod says, but at the same time, you can’t let your business slide. And for franchisors, letting one franchisee skate could mean that the rest of them start lacing their roller skates.

Olddebts.com could be the answer. Here’s how it works: A company logs onto the site and pays a flat fee for each of a laundry list of services. Among the services offered are a “quick-collect” letter or a series of more aggressive letters, credit reports, credit bureau notifications and a courtesy call to the debtor before the harsher action starts. The traditional collection method takes 40 percent of the money they recover, so trying olddebts.com first makes sense, Cronrod points out.

A letter is sent on the debt collection agency’s stationery with instructions that the payment is to be sent to the company owed the money. Fidelity has the added edge of being able to report the debtor to the National Credit Bureau, something individual companies aren’t able to do. In most cases, the debtor pays, Cronrod says. Those particular cases are known as the low-hanging fruit.

If the low-hanging fruit doesn’t shake off the branch, however, then there are always the traditional collection methods to fall back on.

Muti-Family Executive - May/2003

Rent Recovery Service introduces a flat fee program that allows property owners to collect old debts without paying additional commissions or contingency fees. Available at www.ABadTenant.com , the service allows owners to initiate debt collection proceedings by setting up an account and inputting information online. Residents receive one or more collection options with instructions to pay the property owner directly. The service also notifies Experian, Equifax, TransUnion and the Delinquent Tenant Cooperative of the delinquency. Owners receive 100 percent of the amount due if residents pay the debt. The flat fee ranges from $16.95 to $26.95 per resident.