The Collections industry’s tactics may be taking a turn for the….better? Keeping in mind the number of recent lawsuits against debt collection agencies, ACA International, the largest trade group of professional creditors and collectors, claims more and more collection companies are working towards training collectors to take a more of an empathetic position.

Empathy may just be the plan of action that can turn the industry around. A large number of people who owe money are being called by various collections agencies, and if they do obtain money, they are not going to want to give it to the aggressive threatening collector, they will give it to the person they can work with.

As agencies are enhancing training courses to include techniques on how to be gentler with consumers, a focus is being put on coaching, mentoring and counseling debtors, rather than aggressively threatening them. Trainees are encouraged to reflect on their personal experiences with collectors or someone that they know has dealt with them.

One recent trend has been to suggest that debtors speak with their parents or grandparents about taking out a loan against their life insurance policies or reverse mortgage against their house. The collectors who practice this technique claim that our grandparents remember the Great Depression. They may not want this generation to feel that kind of pain and may be more apt to take a loan against the life retirement account or the life insurance policy.

Collectors who adhere to this philosophy think that it is in actuality a positive thing. They claim that it doesn’t hurt anyone. If a person borrows against life insurance it might be preferable to borrowing against a 401(k) or a retirement plan. That is because the person will be counting on that money to live on.

Wrong or right, it would do the collections industry some good to evaluate its situation, and look for new innovative ways to collect in a suffering economy.

Mallory McGuinness is employed by a debt collection company. Also she composes articles on business, finance, consumer spending and collection agencies.

There is no doubt that text messaging has become a major medium for exchanging information. Easy, painless, no speaking on the phone. No wonder that according to the latest statistics that have been taken there were almost 750 billion text messages sent in the U.S. in 2009, almost double the number from one year before. Actually, technology and research firm executive Jacob D. Almeida recently predicted that money transfers will be the top mobile application by as early as 2012.

Debt collectors have stayed out of this field for now; The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act was a landmark legislation that went into effect in the late 1970s and has strictly outlined how debt collectors can call and when. Seeing as this act is even older than a stereotypical “Saved by the Bell Cell phone” from the 90s, it might be due time to adjust the law. But analysts are saying that any change in this area would have to come from consumers seeking change, not collectors.

Under the FDCPA, communications with consumers require a notice that the text is in fact from a debt collector, which leads to issues with the 160 character maximum length of money transferring messages. Another hurdle is determining who will pay the message. There is no current way for a collection agency to know if a consumer has a plan that includes unlimited text messages; the kicker being that if a contact is paid for by the debtor, it is illegal.

Another potential hurdle for debt collection agencies is determining the ownership of the device itself. The debtor might be utilizing a company owned wireless device for example. Said company might be monitoring the usage of the device, which would lead to third party disclosure issues if there were communications based in text that discuss a debt.

Sadly, Congress has to vote on health care, the budget, cap and trade and many other issues first before it can get down and tackle this text message issue. So time will tell.

Mallory is employed by a debt collection agency. She also writes articles on consumer spending, the credit industry and debt collection.