Case Studies
We take pride in being the best at what we do and it's our goal to set the standard in commercial collections. We have many cases like the ones below each month, and a recent industry wide survey showed we often recover double the amount of placements over the long term vs. our competitors in the collection world.
Safe Deposit Box
MMG had an old collection against a construction company in a major U.S. city. Our attorneys filed a suit and won a default judgment. The debtor claimed that they had closed the company and that there were no remaining assets and no personal liability. We continued with post judgment enforcement, conducted ongoing debtor's exams and found some old bank accounts. We sent notifications to all previous banks and received information about various accounts and a safe deposit box that the debtor had failed to mention while under oath. When we contacted the debtor's attorney about the bank information and his client's lack of full disclosure while under oath, he asked us to give him a day to consult with his client. A sizable check was received that week for payment in full.
A Bank's Unexpected Recovery
A major U.S. bank took over a large computer supply business that had fallen behind on their loan payments. The bank liquidated the company's assets and then tried to collect the remaining receivables. The poor accounting from the last two quarters of the closed computer company made it hard for the bank to prove what amounts were owed. The debtors knew this and avoided phone calls figuring they could get out of paying bills that were due to the dissolved company. After much frustration, the bank came to us for help. Our team took over several of these large collections for the bank against many major national retailers. We issued a legal deadline for the retailers to provide their own full accounting of goods received. Reluctantly, the major national retailers provided this information which was then analyzed in comparison to the shipping information and the invoices from the closed company. A second deadline was then issued to pay, return inventory, or appear in court. Within about 60 days, all of the major balances that were owed got paid in full. We recovered over a million dollars that the bank thought was not collectible.
Tough Negotiation In Retail
A major national retailer was purchased by a private equity company. The new owners hired a management team to negotiate pay offs on all of the outstanding debt in order to improve its cash position and make the chain more profitable. The new management team made all of the creditors an offer of 25 cents on the dollar and promised a great deal of new business for the future. Many creditors took short payments on the debt because the management team was very aggressive and made threats of filing for bankruptcy protection, or threats of not doing future business with anyone who did not take their offer. Several of our clients asked us to get more information and handle the matter for them. The debtor's new management team did not want to provide us with their financials or negotiate with us. They even tried to go around the process by going back to our clients and saying we were being unreasonable, which is a diversion tactic often used by debtors who don't get their way. Our clients referred all debtor contact back to us because they trusted our expertise. We then proceeded to make contact directly with the parent private equity company who had hired the management team and issued them a deadline to pay or be sued. On the very last day before being served with a lawsuit, the debtor paid their bills owed to our clients in full.
Front Page News
MMG recently had a large collection against a major island country in the Caribbean. The country's tourism office had placed substantial business around the U.S., and then had left the bills unpaid for more than 6 months. The country's tourism officials kept telling their U.S. based vendors that their government treasury would not release any funds to pay for the outstanding invoices. The tourism office kept delaying and asking for another 30 days as each month passed. Our team's research found that the country was experiencing financial problems and that there were limited funds to pay any of the bills in the near future, if at all. We found a way to contact the Prime Minister's office and we diligently worked to find the proper channels to provide the right pressure and issued a final deadline to pay or be sued in U.S. courts. Our deadline became a front page news article in the nation's local newspaper. Our clients were paid in full, while most other major companies continue to be frustrated, receiving very small partial payments, or no payments at all.
More Than Twice The Money
We recently had a collection against a well-known advertising agency that had been placing business for municipal and government entities. The agency had been keeping all funds they received from the advertisers that were due to the media outlets, to pay their own bills and payroll. As the agency's payments to media outlets became more delinquent and the conversion of funds became apparent, the agency shut their doors and hired an attorney to offer their creditors about 20 cents on the dollar to "settle" the balances. Many media outlets, collection agencies, and attorneys accepted the settlement and moved on. As always, our MMG team dug deeper into the matter and discovered more funds were actually available as potential recovery for our clients. We also made the debtor confirm that the offices were closed and that the company was indeed, dissolved. As part of that process, we had someone meet the debtor at the storage facility and go through the office's assets. We then took possession of the agency's remaining assets including furniture, phone systems, and computers in order to monetize them for our clients. In the end, several of our clients ended up with settlements closer to 50 cents on the dollar, more than double that of the other creditors.
