Otto Academy
Nobody explains how debt collection works. Where the accounts come from, what the mailroom does, why some calls stop an account dead — it is normally learned by absorbing it over a year. These are the courses we wish existed when we started.
Courses
- Collections 101The life of a debt, from the bank that charged it off to the money going back. Written for someone who started at a collections law firm this week and has never seen how any of it fits together. · 8 lessons · about 120 minutes
- Using OttoHow the same process runs inside Otto — the work queue, what enforcement means before an action rather than after it, and where the audit file comes from. · 3 lessons · about 35 minutes · passphrase required
Every lesson in Collections 101
- Where the debt comes fromCharge-off, placement and purchase — the three events that decide who owns the account on your screen and what your firm is allowed to do with it. · 14 min
- What a placement actually isA placement is a contract, a data file and a set of standards you will be measured against. This is what is inside one and what each part governs. · 15 min
- The mailroomEverything that arrives — post, fax, email, portal uploads — lands here, and some of it has to stop work on an account within hours. This is why the mailroom is a compliance function and not a post room. · 16 min
- Outbound callingAttempts, contacts and conversations are three different things. How an outbound operation is actually structured, and the rules that shape it. · 16 min
- Inbound callsThe consumer called you. That changes the tempo, the risk and what has to happen in the first thirty seconds. · 14 min
- Disputes, and what stops collectionSix things a consumer can do that change what your firm may do next — what each one stops, and for how long. · 17 min
- Suit and judgmentWhat has to be true before an account can be filed on, what the court process looks like at volume, and what a judgment is actually worth. · 16 min
- The money coming backPayments arrive, sit in trust, and are remitted to the client. Every part of that is regulated, reconciled and audited. · 14 min
What this is not
This is a description of how the work is done, not advice about what the law requires of you or your firm. Every rule these courses touch is set out in the compliance reference with its primary sources, and the vocabulary is defined once in the glossary.
This is an informational reference, not legal advice, and using it creates no attorney-client relationship. Limitations periods turn on facts this page cannot know — which state's law governs, the contract type, when the claim accrued, and whether anything tolled or revived it. Confirm against the primary source and your own counsel before acting.