The use of Credit Reporting to persuade a debtor to pay only works if the debtor cares about their credit. Some consumer debtors will just laugh and say go ahead and report this debt to my credit report, because they already have bad credit. It is your job to be able to tell which debtors care about their credit and which don't.
Even if a debtor has bad credit and does not care if you add another debt to their credit report, you should still report the debt, because at some point they may care and it could help you to get paid. It has been my experience this happens alot with younger debtors later on down the line. I have had debtors try to purchase a car or house 5-7 years after I reported the debt and I was finally able to get paid so that they could get their loan.
I did collections for landlords from college students for rent and damages. Most of the students did not pay, and some of the parents of the students would call me once I sent an initial letter to the student, and pay me in full with a credit card.
Some students set up payment plans for $25 a month and would make sporadic payments. I reported these debts to the credit bureaus and when these students graduated and tried to purchase a house and/or car or tried to get credit for a hall or for other purposes such as getting married, this debt showed up on their credit report.
I would get frantic calls from a debtor who used to ignore me, and sometimes they would have the bank or company that wanted to issue them credit call me. Some of the time the student would tell the bank that the bill had been paid.
I found it is worth reporting the debt to the credit bureau because once this happened, I was able to obtain payment in full all at once and close the account.
The 3 major credit bureaus are:
You can visit each one on line to find the one that will work best for you, you can decide which features you want to pay for and pay for just what you need. For example, you may want to have the capability to pull credit reports or just report delinquent debts. Check out each credit bureaus website and look at what they have to offer, then decide which bureau you would like to be a member of.
Remember, you can report to all 3 bureaus, but that is not necessary. Also remember, that if someone only checks credit on one bureau and that is not the one you report to, you will not show up as a debt when that person applies for credit.
Some people like to report to all 3 for that reason, but the choice is yours.
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