Professional Placement Services

When Should You Check Your Child’s Credit Reports?

When Parents have plenty of reasons to worry about how their kids will handle money and credit. How can you get them to save? Will they get a good job when they are on their own? Will they pay their bills on time? How much debt will they rack up if they go to college?

Now add one more thing to the list: child identity theft.

One in 40 households with children under age 18 had at least one child whose personal information was compromised by identity fraud, according to the 2012 Child Identity Fraud Survey, conducted by Javelin Strategy & Research and sponsored by ITAC.

Some of those victims discover that credit accounts have been opened in their names, even though they were young children at the time. While it’s never easy to learn your child’s identity has been compromised, the sooner you discover the problem, the better. Once you know, you’ll hopefully be able to stop the perpetrator from continuing to misuse your child’s information.

Children should not have credit reports. Therefore, a credit report in the name of a child who has never applied for or been granted credit is likely a sign that something is amiss. Parents who suspect a problem may want to contact the credit reporting agencies to find out if a report exists on their child.

Eddee Daniel – Bad debt is good business!

PPS was granted the pleasure of having the Menomonee Valley Artist in residence Eddee Daniel visit us to discuss business in the Menomonee Valley. The purpose of the artist in residence program is to use art as a medium to boaster the potential of the growing businesses in the Menomonee Valley as a symbol of urban revitalization and cultivate relationships throughout businesses and individuals in the Valley. Eddee with years of experience in art, teaching, and writing was kind enough to write an article about his impressions on Professional Placement Services on his blog Art Without Boarders. Excerpt below:

PPS is a successful and growing business with 40 employees and 180 clients. “We’re experts in collection,” Craig says. “Our clients want to outsource collection activities to the experts.” Their clients include local and national retailers, banks, health care companies and various levels of government. And, yes, I’m told fervently, security is one of the primary concerns. The locked doors—and the surveillance cameras I hadn’t even noticed—are intended to protect the privacy of client businesses and debt-laden consumers alike.

I confess ignorance about the business of collection. Craig, who hears this all the time, is energized. The company makes 35,000 calls a day, he tells me. “We want to help people get out of debt. Our big message is, ‘Communicate with us’.” Clearly relishing the subject, he elaborates, “Some people have an image of us as the collector at the door with a baseball bat. We work hard to change that.” Their primary goal, he says, is to enable people to manage their finances. In a soft, compassionate tone he suggests, “Everyone goes through times that are tough. We want to understand the situation and work with them.”

PPS Achieves Federal HUBZone Certification

Professional Placement Services, LLC (PPS), a nationally licensed, woman-owned small business based in Milwaukee, WI, today announced it has achieved Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) certification through the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA).

The HUBZone program helps small businesses in urban and rural communities gain preferential access to Federal procurement opportunities. The program was enacted into law as part of the Small Business Reauthorization Act of 1997.

The largest single Federal client for collection agencies remains the U.S. Department of Education (ED).  ED has, since the beginning of its current procurement going back to early 2013, repeatedly indicated its desire for Private Collection Agencies (PCAs) working on future task orders to subcontract a portion of the work to HUBZone-certified businesses.  The most recent goals published by ED in documents found on GovWatch related to the current procurement indicate a preference that 3% of the work be subcontracted to such firms.  ED PCAs are expected to bill the government $700 million in fees by 2015, meaning upwards of $21 million in annual revenue may be subcontracted to HUBZone-certified firms by then.

For many consumers, paying medical bills is a stretch. One in three Americans has trouble with that, according to a recent analysis by researchers at the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute.

It affects people with insurance as well as those without, and people with a wide range of incomes can be overwhelmed by hospital bills. Medical debt is worrisome and embarrassing, but more importantly, it can have long-term financial consequences.

Even now with more insured people in the United States than ever before there are still one in ten people who are not insured. According to Gallup’s most recent data, 13.4 percent of Americans lacked health insurance in April. That’s down from 15 percent in March and 18 percent in the third quarter of 2013.

Here are some tips that may be helpful to avoid or alleviate medical debt:

Professional Placement Services is joining UPAF (United Performing Arts Fund) Ride for the arts again this year. Professional Placement Services’ is committed to supporting our region’s economic, educational and emotional well-being. The contributions made to UPAF go directly to funding arts education programs that help at-risk kids find their voice. The contributions also helps keep jobs in Southeastern Wisconsin and ensures our region will continue to be home to world-class performances.

If you’re looking for a meaningful and far-reaching way to improve the region, supporting UPAF is a great way to do it. Join our strong community of people dedicated to the betterment of Southeastern Wisconsin.

It is practically unavoidable. If you extend credit, you will eventually have some customers who don’t pay their bills. And after you finally tire of listening to their excuses — or cursing their uncanny ability to avoid your phone calls — you will think about contacting a collection agency.

No shame in that — businesses do it every day. In 2007, the latest year for which data are available, the collections industry recovered $51 billion on behalf of clients, keeping $11 billion in commissions and netting $40 billion for the creditors who hired them. Good collection agencies have the time and expertise to recover outstanding debts that your small business may not.

Contrary to popular perception, there are plenty of good bill collectors out there. While the occasional bad actor gets the headlines, less than 0.01 percent of all collection contacts end in complaints to state or federal regulators or the Better Business Bureau, according to ACA International, a Minneapolis, Minnesota-based industry trade group.

April is National Financial Literacy month and a great time to remind consumers of the importance of taking charge of their personal financial well-being. Among the important aspects American consumers should know is what to do if contacted by a debt collector about a delinquent or defaulted account.

“While no one really wants to get a call or letter telling them they owe money, consumers need to know they are not alone,” ACA International CEO Pat Morris said. “Each year, for many very legitimate and often unavoidable reasons, millions of consumers fall behind on payments and are contacted by a debt collector.”

ACA International offers helpful tips for consumers to help effectively manage contact from third-party debt collector should the need arise. A third-party debt collector is unique in that they are service provider hired by the owner of the debt (i.e., a creditor or debt buyer) to recover a rightfully owed debt on their behalf.

April is National Financial Literacy month!

MADISON – (April 1, 2014) – April is National Financial Literacy month and the Wisconsin Collectors Association wants to remind Wisconsin consumers they have important rights if contacted by a debt collector about a delinquent or defaulted account.

“Millions of consumers per year may find themselves behind on payments and are contacted by a creditor or debt collector,” Wisconsin Collectors Association President Tina Hanson said. “While no one ever wants to get a call or letter telling them they owe money, consumers need to know they are protected by very important federal and state laws.”

America’s economy relies on the repayment of consumer credit such as loans, credit cards, and bills for services rendered to keep costs down and ensure the availability of affordable credit. Federal, state, and local governments in the public sector also rely on the repayment of billions of taxpayer owed dollars in delinquencies including student loans, uncollected court fees, unpaid taxes, library fines, and traffic tickets. The following are helpful tips for Wisconsin consumers who may be contacted about a rightfully owed debt:

MILWAUKEE–The credit and debit card information stolen from mega-retailer Target and others this past holiday season sounded an alarm to millions of consumers.

But a lesser-known credit problem should put all consumers on alert.
CBS 58’s Diane Moca has the bottom line on how your credit can tank even if you did nothing wrong.

CBS 58 Contacted Professional Placement Services to find out how. Professional Placement Services is Wisconsin’s most reputable collections agency, with over 100 Wisconsin clients Professional Placement Services has over 15 years of experience serving the community. CBS 58’s Diane Moca interviewed the Founder of Professional Placement Services Craig Johnson to find out how creditors can affect consumers credit reports.

The Better Business Bureau (BBB) says four out of five of people in the state are failing to keep track of one simple number that could be costing them big bucks.

Coming off a challenging year, signs point to economic improvement in 2014.

Aside from the spectacular performance of the U.S. stock market, 2013 was business-wise and economically a year that many people would like to forget. Higher taxes went into effect. Federal government spending was sequestered and the government was subjected to a partial shutdown. A “default” was threatened.

Affordable Care Act enrollment proved to be a fiasco. Before it actually commenced, there was seemingly endless talk about “tapering” (reduced Federal Reserve purchases of securities). Elsewhere, a tiny member of the euro area, Cyprus, saw a collapse of its banking sector, causing huge losses of its largest depositors.