As of November 2026, TSI's third-party collections service recovers charged-off consumer and commercial accounts in TSI's name, as a licensed collection agency. TSI sends validation notices, skip-traces, reaches customers by text, email, phone and letter, and offers payment plans and settlements inside limits you set. You keep ownership of every account.
Results vary by portfolio, including account age, balance and type, and by client program.
- A-1048286Text
- A-1037774Email
- A-1091361Call
- A-1025548Letter
- A-1073135Email
- BankruptcyClear
- DeceasedClear
- Military statusClear
- Address and phoneUpdated
Got a letter or call from TSI about your own account? Go to the Consumer Support Hub or make a payment.
What your current agency is costing you
Most creditors negotiate the fee hard and then stop measuring. That's backwards. Take an illustrative portfolio that liquidates at 15% with a 25% contingency fee. An agency that charges 19% has to liquidate about 13.9% to net you the same, so 6 points of fee are worth only about 1.1 points of liquidation. If the cheaper agency liquidates 1.5 points less, it costs you money. What you net after fees is the number that matters.
The other cost shows up later. A third-party agency speaks for your brand and holds your customers' data. Oversight of your agency is your problem, years after the placement.
And when complaints spike, your customers blame you, whoever made the call.
What's included
Day-one account work
Accounts are scored, scrubbed for bankruptcy, deceased and military status, and skip-traced when they arrive. The validation notice goes out at the start, with the dispute rights federal law requires.
Contact in a scored order
Collectors work accounts in the order the scoring sets, on the channel each customer is most likely to answer: text, email, phone or letter. Contact follows the Regulation F call limits, the TCPA and state rules, with consent and opt-outs tracked by channel.
Plans and settlements in your limits
Collectors offer the payment plans and settlement ranges you approve. Anything outside them comes back to you first.
Ways to pay
A self-service page open around the clock, where customers pay, start a plan or accept a settlement you've pre-approved, plus a 24/7 phone line and digital wallets. TSI remits to you on the schedule in your contract.
Credit reporting, only if you want it
TSI can furnish to Equifax, Experian and TransUnion when you direct it, with monthly updates and corrections as they come up.
Complaint handling with root causes
Consumer Affairs investigates complaints and traces each one to a root cause. Complaints show up in your scheduled reports.
How it runs
Agree the program
Placement criteria, settlement authority, credit reporting, recall rules and pricing (contingency, a fixed fee per account or a mix) go into the contract.
Place the accounts
Files arrive by secure file transfer or API. TSI acknowledges every account and reconciles the inventory with you.
Start within a day
Validation notices, scoring and first skip tracing start within 24 hours of placement. Contact attempts typically begin within 48 hours.
Work, resolve, remit
Collectors resolve disputes, set up plans and take payments. Payments post and remit on schedule, and notes flow back to your system.
Escalate or return
Accounts that still won't resolve can go to legal review, only with your written approval, or come back to you for secondary placement or sale.
Where it fits with the other stages
Third-party collection picks up where first-party collections and early demand letters stop, usually at charge-off. If TSI ran the earlier stage, the account's contact history, disputes and consent records come with it.
From here, two paths remain. Accounts where the balance and documents support it can go to legal recovery through TSI's managed attorney network. The rest can move to a secondary agency, or you can weigh selling or keeping them.
The accounts stay yours, and you can recall them under the terms in your contract.
What you see
Your team gets a client portal with every account's activity, collector notes, letters sent, payments and audit trail. Scheduled reports cover placements, collections and liquidation by placement month, disputes, complaints, recalls and remittance.
Ask any agency, TSI included, for liquidation by placement month on matched accounts. It's the only fair way to compare two agencies.
General information, current as of November 2026. It isn't legal advice. Rules change and differ by state, so check the sources linked here and talk to your own counsel before you act on it.
The company behind the work
Questions buyers ask
What is third-party collections?
Third-party collections is when an outside agency collects charged-off accounts in its own name for the creditor that still owns them, and TSI does this inside the settlement limits and contact rules you set, reporting every step back to you.
What does a third-party collection agency do that we can't?
It collects in its own name, with licenses, validation notices, dispute handling and skip tracing set up for charged-off accounts. Your customers also hear a different voice, which changes some conversations.
Can we split placements between TSI and our current agency?
Yes. A split is the best way to compare agencies on matched accounts. Ask each agency for liquidation by placement month and compare what you net after fees.
Will TSI report our accounts to the credit bureaus?
Only when you direct it, and where the account type and state allow it.
How is third-party collection priced?
On contingency, a fixed fee per account or a mix, set by balance, age, placement order and volume. A lower fee can still cost you more if the agency liquidates less, so compare what you net.
Can we recall accounts?
Yes, under the recall terms in your contract. TSI reports recalled accounts separately.
Compare your agencies on what you keep
The Recovery Performance Diagnostic sets baseline economics on one portfolio or segment, reviews channel strategy and complaints, and designs a carve-out you can measure.
Got a letter or call from TSI about your own account? Go to the Consumer Support Hub or make a payment.
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Paying a bill or have a question about your account? Go to the Consumer Support Hub.