[Christien]

You don't need a judgment to submit an account to a collection agency. Our company does it every day. A customer owes us money (for things like NSF charges, not real debts), it's not worth our time to track him down, we send it to a collection agency, they keep just over 1/3 of whatever they collect. We've made thousands over the last couple years. Much faster and more efficient than going through the legal system. It takes at least 6 months to get default judgment by the time all the paperwork is done and waiting periods expire, then you still have to collect.