Most of the debt collection agencies charge a percentage of the money they will be able to obtain for you for the delinquent accounts you have. This percentage can vary from say 10% and go up to as high as 50%. If these agencies cannot get you your money back then they will not charge you anything at all. But that is not all as these agencies will usually charge a percentage based on several factors relating to your delinquent accounts.

The older the accounts the more percentage they will charge from you as older accounts are very tough to get back money from and hence obviously higher the costs. The trickiest accounts are those which you have been trying to get back money from and were not able to get the money back at all. That means the agency will have to put up more work to wrangle the money back and hence the high cost.

The other costs which are involved in the whole process making long distance call, travel , filing fees or even doing background checks on certain people . All that is a separate cost from the percentage cost mentioned above. Most of the agencies charge these once the job is done but make sure to check the contract for any other hidden charges that may hit you. That is why the due diligence is important before selecting the correct collection agency. You can also make sure to have all costs included in one package and then let the agency charge a percentage fee. That may be easier on you as tracking all the separate costs can easily become a headache if you have a large number of unpaid accounts.

Some agencies may charge you higher fixed fee rather than percentage if you have say for example small amounts to be collected for large number of accounts . In this case the fixed fee is better rather than a percentage as you know what costs are involved and agencies also know what to expect as fees. If you go this route make sure to get some thing into the contract with regards to the success criteria else it may so happen that you do not get any money back but may need to pay the fees.