Skip Tracing

What is Skip Tracing?

Skip Tracing is a process which braodly refers to the process of finding a responsbile individual for the payment of a debt when their identity is elusive or difficult to ascertain and inparticular when their whereabouts are unknown, or when then have ’skipped’ the country.

How can Skip Tracing Help You?

Skip Tracing can assist you to find a debtor where you no longer know where they are or what they are doing because they have attempted to obscure their identity from you.  This will assist you with eventually bringing them to justice and finally paying the debt that they owe to you.

What Types of strategies are usually sucessful in Skip Tracing?

1. Search of public records.

Obviously the first place to start is to search public records like the whitepages, conduct ASIC company name searches, conduct property register searches which are held by each state and in comse case conduct criminal record checks of the person including all known names and identities.  Obviously, the most basic information which is freely available to the public that can often be matched in public records is the name, address, telephone number, email address, business details, mobile number, details of any property owned, details of any companies which they are officers of, entries on the national personal insolvency index and some other pieces of the information which can be obtained from public records either for free or for a nomial fee.   Some of the free databases include the Federal Court of Australia website which allows you to search court records.

2. Build up a database

The simpliest but often most effective act to begin a skip tracing process is to open a file.  Start printing out whatever  information you can obtain about a person from the simpliest sources and store this in a place where you can refer to it easily again.  As you start to accumulate data you may begin to notice patterns emerging which can lead you to inferences about the whereabouts of the person who you are skip tracing.

Be careful to avoid collecting false information about persons with the same or similar name or identity as this can contaminate your data and make it harder for you to find the correct person.  For example, for a common name like Smith in Sydney Australia, there could be 300 to 400 instances of this name in one suburb alone.  In general if you can cross reference your data in a 3 way match this is much stronger method of verification than a one way match.

Some of the patterns you might begin to see emerging in relation to an errant debtor might include being very itenerant, having no fixed address, being ‘unemployed’ or having being involved in a number of failed companies or businesses which are now in liquidation.  They may have an entry on the national personal insolvency index which is a record of all persons who have been made bankrupt in the past in Australia.

3.  Act on your information.

Once you have the basic information which should include the following:

• Subjects Common Name Used (and Alias names)
• Spouse’s Name and Maiden Name
• Last known Address (and the date it was valid)
• Any Previous Addresses (and dates valid)
• Last Known Telephone Numbers (and dates valid)
• Date Of Birth (or approximate age if date of birth)
• Date Of Birth Of Spouse (or approximate age)
• Last Known Employment (Occupation)
• Last Known Employment Of Spouse (Occupation)
• ID Numbers or Drivers License # (state issued in)
• Identification or Drivers License Numbers.

You can then begin to act on this information once you have established these details by instituting legal processes or calling the person and demanding payment of sending a debt collection letter, which we have available here on the site.  If you would like more information, please do not hesitate to email us.

Debt Collection Letter Resources