Legal Settlement

Usually, settling a debt shows up as negative information in a consumer's credit report. However, negotiating a settlement indicates that the consumer took responsibility for paying as much as they could on the debt. The credit report will show that the settled debt is not outstanding anymore. It is important to understand from a business point of view, the need for settling outstanding bills though we may end up receiving only a part of what the original due amounts were. As a result of our diverse experience, we at BACS have handled various types of settlements. Our experience with financial institutions includes overdraft fee, lender placed insurance mortgage, and service members Civil Relief Act (SCRA) matters, to name just a few. We have experience in private class actions as well as on matters involving relevant regulatory bodies such as attorneys general, the CFPB, the DOJ, and the OCC.

Case Study — Regulatory Agreement

High-volume Borrower Support

Challenges

In 2011, the Office oft the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Reserve Board, and 14 leading mortgage servicers agreed to a Consent Order (and later a Payment Agreement) to provide eligible borrowers compensation or other remedy. With millions of affected borrowers and billions of dollars involved, the parties needed borrower support from a firm with sufficient infrastructure and relevant experience.

Solution

With substantial experience handling legal settlements for financial-sector clients, we were engaged separately by each of the 14 mortgage servicers
Customer service representatives (CSRs) accessed borrowers' data — kept in strictly segregated databases for compliance and security purposes — through a single application to help respond to questions about the program, individual borrowers' status, payment eligibility, and various complicating factors such as death, divorce, name changes, etc.
We staffed as many as 1,500 CSRs in two Minnesota locations, handled 3.6 million inbound and 1.6 million outbound calls (in both English and Spanish), and built a program website that received more than 5 million hits
Throughout the course of the program, we sent more than 4.4 million notices, 12 million reminders, 1.4 million administrative letters, 1.7 million emails, and 4.2 million checks worth $3.6 billion

Solution

Single solution for handling inquiries from all 14 servicers' customers
Protected servers' customers' sensitive data in segregated databases
Located and reached eligible former customers through multipart outreach
Achieved more than 90% check-cashing rate among 4.2 million payees by exhaustive location efforts and reissue programs

Case Study — Legal Settlement Administration

Multilingual Class Member Support

Challenge

In 2014, the Court approved a notice program and plan of allocation related to proposed settlements with multiple defendants under antitrust class action lawsuits.

Five of 13 defendants agreed to settlements totaling S39.5 million due to certain passengers for travel between the United States and Asia/Oceania. SourceHOV was engaged to provide notice and administer the settlement.

Solution

With substantial experience designing and implementing complex notice programs to multilingual audiences, we were engaged to provide notice and administer the settlement
Notice program including national magazines, newspaper supplement Asian newspapers, and an online ad network as well as global component including international newspapers and online media across 14 countries overcame an objection
We established a 24-hour toll free telephone support via Interactive Voice Response in 15 countries and 10 languages
Customer service representatives supporting 10 languages worked evenings in our Minnesota contact center to respond to messages left by international callers
Settlement website is operational in 10 languages and has received more than 750k visitors and 96% of total claims filed

Benefits

Global notice program developed by on-staff court-recognized notice expert to overcome legal objections
Prodded service in 10 languages to class members via Interactive Voice Response, live operators, printed notice materials, and websites
Full spectrum of administration services available to handle both notice program and settlement administration