1. The contractor shall accept for collection all accounts referred by the University without regard to geographical area, amount, or age of the account and shall begin collection activities on each account within 48 hours of placement. 1.1 Accounts which have previously been placed with a different collection agency and subsequently returned to the University are referred to as “second placements” (hereinafter referred to as “seconds”). The University may forward such accounts to the contractor at any time and will identify the accounts as seconds. If forwarded, all seconds will be accepted and worked by the contractor in accordance with all requirements stated herein. 1.2 The contractor must be able to accept placement of accounts via a secure internet site. The University may use Excel, Access, or other software to provide data. The contractor will be authorized to “view only” Perkins loan accounts via the third-party loan management company’s website (hereinafter referred to as “ECSI”). All required referral information will be available for view. 1.3 The contractor must be able to send and receive data using a format acceptable to the University. 2. The contractor shall acknowledge all accounts received for collection. Such acknowledgment must be confirmed via a secure website, no later than seven (7) calendar days after the accounts are referred by the University. 3. The contractor shall accomplish the collection procedures in accordance with all applicable Federal and State laws, including but not limited to, rules and regulations established by the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, Federal Trade Commission, FERPA, the G-L-B Act, and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). 4. The contractor shall comply with all applicable restrictions in Title 26, United States Code, Section 6103(m)(4) and (5) applicable to addresses obtained by the University from the Internal Revenue Service and is financially responsible for any penalties which may be assessed for using the addresses for purposes other than collecting the student loan (Title 26, USC, Section 7213). 5. The contractor shall use its best efforts to achieve maximum recovery of the accounts referred for collection. These efforts will include, but are not limited to, a pre-collection process, telephone calls, mail efforts, and, if required during the collection process, calls to references and/or use of a national credit bureau report in its skip tracing procedures.
