Missing customers – when customers who owe you money transfer to another location, or simply disappear without notice. Several attempts to contact home numbers or office numbers fail. Letters you write are returned to you.search

Companies do face the dilemma of collecting from a missing customer. A decision will have to be made on whether to continue looking for the customer or just give up and write off the debt. Nowadays, there are many ways to track a missing customer, and some resources are at hand which you can use to find people.

1. Reference persons – it’s always good to require reference persons, not related to the customer, when a customer fills out a credit agreement with you. This can be friends, employers or neighbors. Try to keep this information and refer to this in case you need to eventually find the customer.
2. Immediate relatives – This can be added as one requirement from customer before a credit is extended.
3. Phone books or phone directories can be good sources of addresses and phone numbers
4. Post office – Try to obtain change-of-address information from the Postal Service whenever possible. This can help speed up the search.
5. Internet searches – The internet is a powerful tool to search for people. Many sites provide information on addresses, email and other records.

When you have tried the above options and still can’t find the customer you’re looking for and you just don’t want to give up the search, it would be best to consider transferring the account to a credit collection agency with experience in finding missing people. Credit collection agencies have the resources and means to find missing customers and they can utilize these to get the best results for you.