Who doesn’t love a good text message? Painless, fast, and no talking on the phone to that annoying person you have to get in touch with! There is no arguing with the fact that texting is becoming a major conduit for the exchange of information. It is no wonder that there were practically 750 billion text messages sent in the United States last year, nearly twice the amount of text messages sent in 2008.

As far as debt collection goes, collection agents have remained outside of the cellular realm up to now. The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act was a hallmark federal law that took effect in 1978 and has set up strict guidelines about how debt collectors can call and when. Because this act is even older than the stereotypical “Saved By The Bell” cell phones from the early 90s, it just might be time to make some major adjustments to this antiquated law. But experts say that any change to this law would have to come from consumers looking for change, not the collectors.

Under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, if a debt collector is to get in touch with a debtor they need to deliver what is known as a “mini-miranda” which is a statement that lets the debtor know that the contact is an attempt to collect debt. This leads to problems with the 160 character maximum length of many text messages. Another problem is determining who will pay for the text. Currently, there is no way for a collection agency to determine if a debtor has a plan that includes unlimited text messages. Can you imagine if you got a text message from a debt collector that you had to pay for? That would be outrageous and highly illegal!

Another potential issue for bill collection agencies is being sure that the debtor definitely owns the cellphone. For example, the consumer might be utilizing a company owned cell. That company could very well be monitoring the usage of the cellphone, which might lead to illegal third party disclosure issues if debt communications were sent by text.

Sadly for the collections industry, Congress must vote on American taxes, cap and trade, insurance and a slew of other issues first before it can get down and really tackle this text message issue. So it seems like time will tell.

Mallory Megan works for Rapid Recovery Solution and writes articles on commercial collection agencies Also published at In Time, You Might Just Get A Text From Your Debt Collector.

In part one of this series, I spoke about some of the pros and cons of mutual funds. I let you know that there are a number of expenses that come with investing in a mutual fund, including the high price of management fees and brokerage fees that come with trading frequently. But, the fund manager is bound by a responsibility to find the best deals on commission for you that she or he can. Also, the expertise of a fund manager can be quite helpful for beginners when they start to invest.

In addition, some mutual funds offer more than one class of shares. The way it works is this: each class invests in the same pool of securities and the investment objectives and policies are the same. However, each class has different shareholder services and distribution arrangements for different fees and expenses. Therefore, if you pay more money for a higher class of share, you can expect different services, and better performance out of the mutual fund. This multi-class structure gives investors the ability to choose their own fee that fits their investment goals best.

Even though all of these aspects of mutual funds are pros, critics return to the high cost of mutual funds as a big con. They are also quick to point out that the efficiency of mutual funds lack when compared to a simple index fund. An index fund will invest in companies that are part of major stock or bond indexes and therefore attempts to profit from simply riding the market trends, while funds that are run by a manager try to outperform a relevant index through advanced stock picking techniques.

The assets of an index fund are geared to closely match the performance of a particular published index that shows positive trends. Because there will be little changes associated with a stock index, an index fund manager makes fewer trades than an active fund manager. Because of this, the management fee will be much less, and because there are fewer trades, there will be lower trading expenses. In fact, mutual funds have fees that are usually four times as much as those charged by index funds.

Also, evidence proves that mutual funds typically don’t, in fact beat the market, and actually under-perform other portfolios with similar characteristics. One study illustrated that almost 1500 United States mutual funds underperformed the market in about half of the years between 1962 and 1992. What’s more, analysis shows that funds that did well in the past aren’t able to beat the market again in the future. And maybe what is worst is that even if your manager proves to be a dud, and your mutual fund doesn’t do well, you will be stuck with a premium in fees – and often a large tax bill. Ultimately, it is a decision you should make after long thought and weighing all of the pros and cons, and not one that you should take lightly if your money is important to you.

Mallory Megan works for Rapid Recovery Solution and writes articles on medical collection agencies. This article, Is Investing In A Mutual Fund Worth Your While? Part Two is released under a creative commons attribution licence.

A financial institution Trans Unions provided us with a quarterly analysis of new trends in the mortgage industry. They found that mortgage loan delinquency increased for the twelfth straight quarter and hit 6.89 percent, which is an all time national average high. This is the only time in American history where delinquency rates increased and did not decelerate after three consecutive periods.

The statistic has been traditionally looked upon as a precursor to foreclosure and it increased by 10.24 percent from the previous quarter’s 6.25 percent average. Mortgage borrower delinquency is up by around 50 percent, up from 4.58 percent.

Mortgage borrower delinquency rates in the fourth quarter of 2009 were highest in Nevada and Florida while the lowest mortgage delinquency rates were North Dakota, South Dakota and Alaska. Areas that showed the biggest amount of growth in delinquency from the quarter before were the District of Columbia, Delaware and Louisiana. Each state in the United States saw an increase in mortgage delinquency rates.

The information that was revealed was not all bad for the mortgage sector in the fourth quarter. Thirty eight Metropolitan Statistical Areas actually showed that their mortgage loan delinquency rates were decreasing since the third quarter. Areas in Oregon, Indiana and Pennsylvania exhibited the most improved credit conditions.

These variations in delinquency point to the fact that the recession and eventual recovery are both localized house price conditions and unemployment levels. A bit of good news is that in the third and fourth quarters of 2008, the median price of existing single family homes dropped almost seven percent between 2008′s third and fourth quarters, but in 2009 it only dropped -0.4 percent between the third and fourth quarters of 2008.

You may be asking yourself “what does this mean for the future?” Well, TransUnion believes that 60 day mortgage delinquencies will peak between 7.5 and 8 percent over the course of 2010. Additionally, it is believed that Nevada will experience the highest mortgage delinquency rate by the middle of 2010, and North Dakota is expected to continue to show the lowest mortgage delinquency rate by the summer.

Rapid Recovery Solution is a new york collection agency. This and other unique content ‘collection agency software’ articles are available with free reprint rights.