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7 Critical Mistakes Judgment Creditors Make Attempting to Collect Their Judgment – Mistake #6

There are seven critical mistakes judgment creditors make when attempting to collect their judgment. We’ll be discussing each mistake in detail… and how to correct it. Last week, we covered mistake #5: Wasting Significant Money Attempting to Collect from a Judgement Debtor Who “Has No Assets.” Now, let’s identify the problem we are dealing with this week.

MISTAKE #6: FAILURE TO ASCERTAIN THE PSYCHOGRAPHICS OF THE JUDGMENT DEBTOR

Your chances of successfully enforcing your judgment are significantly enhanced when you understand the psychographics of the judgment debtor. You must know what makes him tick to understand how to attack him.

Sun Tzu says in “The Art of War,” “Take from a man that which he cherishes and he will conform to your desires.” This is one of my favorite quotes from “The Art of War.” There is much wisdom in that book that applies directly, in my opinion, to the practice of judgment enforcement. I have relied on the wisdom of Sun Tzu for years in representing our clients in our financial forensic research and consulting practice.

Financial Forensic Services typically gathers as much research and conducts as many interviews with people who know the debtor(s) as possible to understand how they think and what they like and dislike. For example, while interviewing the former wife, former personal assistant, and former business partner of one of our judgment debtors, we learned he was passionate about big game hunting in Alaska.

Our attorney obtained a Writ of Execution from the court, and we accompanied the Sheriff’s deputies to the debtor’s home to execute that Writ. The first assets we took were the standing polar bear and the mounted moose. As we started to take several high power hunting rifles, the debtor became obviously distraught and demanded we stop the seizure of his assets and allow him to settle the judgment. Within 48 hours, he paid the entire high, six-figure judgment in cash and was able to preserve his trophies, expensive guns, and other assets.

In another case, our client had been pursuing their judgment debtor for over four years, attempting to collect a multimillion-dollar judgment. They had been through two major law firms and three private investigators, had zero recovery, no leads, and nothing but cancelled checks to their law firms to show for their unsuccessful efforts.

From our client, we learned the debtor’s pride and joy was his restored vintage Mercedes Benz. We reviewed his cancelled checks we had subpoenaed from the past 24-months. We found a check signed by his new wife from their joint account for over $150,000 to pay for the sailboat she had gave him on his birthday. As the debtor and I stood on the front porch of his country club mansion, watching the award-winning restored Mercedes and his new sailboat being towed away to be auctioned off by the Sheriff, he turned to me with tears in his eyes and asked, “What is it going to take to get you off my butt?” I explained to him that he could just consider me to be his new business partner. I told him I wished him no ill will, but from every success in the world he had from that point forward, I would be taking part of every dollar he earned to satisfy my client’s judgment against him. I told him if he thought he would not enjoy having me as a partner, I would go away, but first I needed 100% of the balance of the judgment plus interest and cost.

He immediately agreed to pay the total judgment and cost, and my client agreed to waive the interest. Our client was paid in full that week.

If you take time to learn the PSYCHOGRAPHICS of the Judgment Debtor, you can move in the right directions quickly and enjoy a greater recovery.

“Take from a man that which he cherishes and he will conform to your desires.”

As Seen In

Financial Forensic Services, LLC is proud to staff Certified Fraud Examiners

Testimonial

“When I was general counsel for First Interstate Bank, I used Joe Dickerson for locating assets, investigating behavior and asset discovery. He did excellent work and always got the information I needed without compromising the bank in any way. He’s more thorough and kept in better touch with me than other investigators. I’d give him a grade of 96 or 97 out of 100.”

Frank Brainerd, Retired
Banker/Attorney

2014-11-11T18:20:20+00:00

Frank Brainerd, Retired
Banker/Attorney

“When I was general counsel for First Interstate Bank, I used Joe Dickerson for locating assets, investigating behavior and asset discovery. He did excellent work and always got the information I needed without compromising the bank in any way. He’s more thorough and kept in better touch with me than other investigators. I’d give him a grade of 96 or 97 out of 100.”

“Financial Forensic Services did an excellent job in the way they executed my case. They were very straightforward. They stated what they could do for us and they did it. And, from a personal standpoint, they are excellent. Both my wife and I felt very comfortable working with them.”

Michael Whalen, 
Businessman

2014-11-11T18:21:13+00:00

Michael Whalen, 
Businessman

“Financial Forensic Services did an excellent job in the way they executed my case. They were very straightforward. They stated what they could do for us and they did it. And, from a personal standpoint, they are excellent. Both my wife and I felt very comfortable working with them.”

” I was prepared to dismiss a federal case involving millions of dollars against a local individual who claimed to have no substantial assets. After your staff hit the records and delved into the transactions behind the transactions, you discovered the individual to actually be worth a few million dollars. We continued the case to conclusion. We were also very happy with the financial background examinations you conducted of the former directors of two failed national banks. The heart of any civil case is whether there is a pot at the end of the lawsuit. You were our lucky leprechaun in finding such pots.”

R. Michael Sentel
, Former Section Chief Legal Division, FDIC

2014-11-11T18:13:08+00:00

R. Michael Sentel
, Former Section Chief Legal Division, FDIC

” I was prepared to dismiss a federal case involving millions of dollars against a local individual who claimed to have no substantial assets. After your staff hit the records and delved into the transactions behind the transactions, you discovered the individual to actually be worth a few million dollars. We continued the case to conclusion. We were also very happy with the financial background examinations you conducted of the former directors of two failed national banks. The heart of any civil case is whether there is a pot at the end of the lawsuit. You were our lucky leprechaun in finding such pots.”

“As an environmental law firm, we use Joe Dickerson to locate prior business owners and do corporate genealogies. He is persistent, that’s the key to a good investigator, and he has a knack for understanding how people move money and do business. That tells him what rocks to look under. Joe is vastly superior to other investigators in two ways: he lets you know what’s going on and he’s honest with you, because he tells you if there’s really anything there worth pursuing. He is unusually thorough and creative finding people. Joe has earned his fee every time.” “If the information is to be found, then I believe that they will find it. Their service enabled me to do a much better job for my client.”

Tim Gabelhouse
, Attorney at Law

2014-11-11T18:20:41+00:00

Tim Gabelhouse
, Attorney at Law

“As an environmental law firm, we use Joe Dickerson to locate prior business owners and do corporate genealogies. He is persistent, that’s the key to a good investigator, and he has a knack for understanding how people move money and do business. That tells him what rocks to look under. Joe is vastly superior to other investigators in two ways: he lets you know what’s going on and he’s honest with you, because he tells you if there’s really anything there worth pursuing. He is unusually thorough and creative finding people. Joe has earned his fee every time.” “If the information is to be found, then I believe that they will find it. Their service enabled me to do a much better job for my client.”

“Joe is the most competent investigator I’ve ever found. He has rare ability to find hidden assets. Others claim it, Joe has it. He understands the Rules of Evidence, he knows how to talk to people to develop a fact pattern, and he has a sixth sense for fraud. Joe has unquestioned integrity and delivers value for his services.”

Andrew Quiat
, Attorney

2014-11-11T18:12:51+00:00

Andrew Quiat
, Attorney

“Joe is the most competent investigator I’ve ever found. He has rare ability to find hidden assets. Others claim it, Joe has it. He understands the Rules of Evidence, he knows how to talk to people to develop a fact pattern, and he has a sixth sense for fraud. Joe has unquestioned integrity and delivers value for his services.”

“Joe Dickerson is the industry standard. You can measure the rest by what he does, and I say that without equivocation. Joe has incredible insight into the dark world of fraud. He understands the devious ways in which people perpetrate white-collar crime.”

Jan Schlichtman
, Attorney at Law

2014-11-11T18:20:55+00:00

Jan Schlichtman
, Attorney at Law

“Joe Dickerson is the industry standard. You can measure the rest by what he does, and I say that without equivocation. Joe has incredible insight into the dark world of fraud. He understands the devious ways in which people perpetrate white-collar crime.”

“They went overboard in providing excellent service. I was very pleased with what they provided for me as their end product. Financial Forensic Services really understands how a case needs to be put together in order to be presented to a jury. Their PowerPoint presentation tied everything together. It was thorough, it was concise, and it got the job done.”

Jim Thomas
, Prosecuting Attorney

2014-11-11T18:21:32+00:00

Jim Thomas
, Prosecuting Attorney

“They went overboard in providing excellent service. I was very pleased with what they provided for me as their end product. Financial Forensic Services really understands how a case needs to be put together in order to be presented to a jury. Their PowerPoint presentation tied everything together. It was thorough, it was concise, and it got the job done.”

“Joe spends the time to understand the problem from the client’s perspective and from the legal perspective. He is intelligent, tenacious, willing to work as hard as it takes, thorough, well-informed, and just awfully good at what he does.”

Thomas E. Root, 
Attorney

2014-11-11T18:20:05+00:00

Thomas E. Root, 
Attorney

“Joe spends the time to understand the problem from the client’s perspective and from the legal perspective. He is intelligent, tenacious, willing to work as hard as it takes, thorough, well-informed, and just awfully good at what he does.”