You place the accounts. We are paid out of what we recover.
SpansCall is a debt collection agency operating on the standard contingency model: no recovery, no fee. Accounts are placed with us in batches, worked through a defined ninety-day cycle by a dedicated collections floor, and remitted to you on a fixed cycle with a reconciliation statement. Whatever we do not recover comes back to you documented.
The cycle starts on placement, not on the age of the debt.
How long an account has sat on your ledger tells us how hard the file will be, not where we begin. A two-year-old balance placed today enters day one of our cycle, exactly like a sixty-day one, and is measured on the same calendar.
Placement and validation
You place a batch by secure file: debtor, balance, product, last payment, contact history. We validate it, merge duplicates, suppress anyone on your do-not-contact list, and confirm the placement value back to you in writing before a single call is made.
Notice and first contact
A written notice of placement goes out by SMS, WhatsApp or email in your approved wording, followed by the first call. The debtor is told who we are, who we act for and what the balance is, and given the channels to dispute it.
Contact campaign and tracing
Structured calling at a disciplined frequency, escalating in tone but never in pressure, with skip-tracing on every dead number. Each attempt is dispositioned with a standard outcome code so the file reads the same way to you as it does to us.
Arrangement or settlement
A promise to pay is captured as a dated commitment, a payment plan as a written schedule, and a discounted settlement only inside the waiver limits you authorised. Broken arrangements are re-worked by a supervisor, not quietly abandoned.
Payment and remittance
Debtors pay you directly wherever possible. Where funds are collected on your behalf they are held in a separate client account and remitted weekly with a reconciliation statement and our commission invoice against it.
Recall and return
At the end of the cycle every unresolved account is returned with its full attempt history, recordings, dispositions and a recommendation: re-place, restructure, or stop. You may also recall any account at any time, for any reason, in writing.
One cycle for every book. Honest expectations for each bucket.
Liquidation falls as a balance ages, and any agency that tells you otherwise is selling. We classify your placement at load, quote the commission against the bucket, and report performance by bucket so a strong month on fresh paper never disguises a weak one on legacy paper.
-
BUCKET 1
Current arrears
1 – 60 daysHighest liquidation in the book and the cheapest to work. Mostly resolved on the first or second contact once the debtor understands the account has been placed. Attracts the lowest commission rate for exactly that reason.
-
BUCKET 2
Early delinquency
61 – 120 daysStill very workable. Contact details are largely intact, the debt is remembered, and most resolutions come as a plan rather than a lump sum. This is where a disciplined calling frequency earns its keep.
-
BUCKET 3
Mid-term
4 – 12 monthsNumbers begin to decay, so tracing effort rises and liquidation drops. Expect written notice to do real work here, and expect a meaningful share of recoveries to arrive as negotiated part-settlements.
-
BUCKET 4
Legacy paper
1 – 3 yearsThe book most clients place first and most agencies quietly park. Trace-heavy and contact-limited: reaching the right person at all is half the work. Priced on a higher contingency because the effort per shilling recovered is genuinely higher.
-
BUCKET 5
Written off
Provided for or impairedAlready absorbed in your accounts, so anything recovered is pure upside. Highest commission, no floor on age, and reported as a separate line so it never flatters the performance of your live book.
-
BUCKET 6
Disputed and untraceable
Any ageDisputes are documented and returned to you rather than argued at volume. Where a debtor cannot be located by lawful means we say so and close the file, rather than billing you for activity on an account that cannot be worked.
We will tell you before you place a batch which buckets we think are worth working and which are not. An agency that accepts every file and reports activity instead of recoveries is charging you for motion.
Contingency only. If nothing is recovered, you owe nothing.
Commission is charged as a percentage of amounts actually collected, invoiced against the remittance that carries them. There is no retainer, no per-call charge and no setup fee, so the only way we make money is by putting yours back in your account.
How the rate is set
- Age of the bucket. Current arrears carry the lowest rate, legacy and written-off paper the highest, because effort per shilling recovered rises with age.
- Size of the placement. Volume moves the rate down. A standing monthly placement moves it down further than a one-off batch.
- Average balance. A book of large balances costs less per shilling to work than a book of very small ones, and is priced accordingly.
- Quality of the data. Verified numbers and recent contact history reduce tracing effort, and that reduction is passed back to you in the rate.
Terms that protect you
- No fee without recovery. Commission accrues only on money received, never on activity, attempts or promises.
- Direct payments count the same. If a debtor pays you directly after we have worked the account, that is a recovery and it is invoiced transparently rather than argued about later.
- Recall at will. Any account may be withdrawn in writing at any time. Commission is due only on what was already collected.
- No waivers without authority. Discounts and settlements happen only inside limits you set in the agreement, in writing.
On rates: we quote against your actual book rather than publishing a table, because a rate quoted before anyone has seen the data is either a guess or a hook. Send a sample file and you will have a written rate per bucket within a week.
Remitted weekly, reconciled to the shilling.
Separate client account
Funds collected on your behalf are never mixed with our operating money. Our preference is that debtors pay you directly, so the question rarely arises.
Fixed remittance cycle
Weekly as standard, with the statement, the receipt references and our commission invoice arriving together rather than a month apart.
Reconciliation you can audit
Every receipt tied to an account number, a date and a call recording, so your finance team can trace any line back to the conversation that produced it.
A login of your own
Read-only access to your placement: account status, attempts, dispositions, arrangements and recordings. You are not waiting on our report to know how the week is going.
- Accounts placed
- 1,480
- Accounts worked to disposition
- 1,480
- Right party contacted
- 61%
- Arrangements in place
- 312
- Arrangements kept
- 74%
- Settlements negotiated
- 41
- Complaints raised and closed
- 2 / 2
Illustrative shape of the weekly pack. Your figures replace these from week one, reported by bucket.
We collect in your name. That is a risk you are lending us.
A debtor chased badly pays once, never borrows again, and tells everyone why. Compliance here is structural rather than promised: the system refuses the call before a supervisor has to.
Disclosure only to the debtor
A colleague, receptionist, neighbour or relative is only ever asked to pass on a message. The balance is never discussed with a third party.
Capped contact frequency
A limit on attempts per account per day and per week, enforced by the dialer rather than by an agent's judgement.
Calling windows you set
No dialling outside the hours or days you approve, holidays included, with no override available on the floor.
Do-not-contact honoured at the dial
Checked per number at the moment of dialling, so a request to stop is respected even mid-campaign.
Disputes stop collection
A disputed balance is documented and referred to you. We do not argue a debtor into paying something they are contesting.
Data handled under the Act
Your debtor data is processed under a written agreement in line with the Data Protection Act, used for this placement only, and returned or destroyed on recall.
Every call, on the record
We run our own telephony, so recordings are not a promise made on your behalf by a third party. They are retrieved by account rather than hunted by date, and a sample is scored against a written scorecard every week.
Attempt log
Dated, coded, and complete, including the calls nobody answered.
Standard dispositions
Reached, no answer, wrong number, refused, disputed, unable.
QA scoring
Weekly, against your scorecard, with the recording attached to the score.
Complaint register
Listed individually and tracked to closure, never summarised into a count.
The test we hold ourselves to
If a debtor complains about how they were treated, you should be able to answer them within the hour, with the recording open in front of you. Anything less than that is not outsourcing, it is hoping.
Place a test batch. Pay us out of what comes back.
Send a sample file and you will have a written commission rate per bucket within a week. Place one batch, watch the cycle run for ninety days, and judge us on the remittance statements rather than on this page.