Au is good for your business and here's the proof. Compare the benefit your organization receives by selling its charged off-portfolio with Au versus keeping it in-house for a 90 day period, or sending it to a third-party collection agency for that same 90 day period.

Benefits you receive after 90 days of in-house collections
If you have a $1 million charged-off portfolio and assign it to a collector making $20/hour it will cost you approximately $1,800 (one hour per day). Assuming the average recovery rate of 1.5% or $15,000 of that $1million and adding storage fees of $300 and management costs of $360 (4 hours/month at $60/hour), the net benefit to your organization would be just $12,540 — a rate of return of 1.25%.

Benefits you receive after 90 days at a third party collection agency
Suppose that same $1 million charged-off portfolio is sent to a third party. Assuming industry averages, the recovery rate of an agency on a charged-off portfolio is 2%, or $20,000. Not bad, but agencies charge their clients an average fee of between 20% and 35%, which subtracts a median amount of $5,410 from your organization's return. Include the additional storage fees and managers' fee, and the net benefit to your organization would be approximately $13,930 — a rate of return of $1.39%.

Benefits you receive within 30 days using Au
Finally, let's look at the numbers when you allow Au to broker that same $1 million charged-off portfolio. Costs to you would include some Information Technology staff time to write a program — $105 (3 hours at $35/hour), collectors' staff time to review and verify data and pull files within 45 days after the sale — $160 (8 hours at $20/hour) and the manager's time to identify accounts and manage process — $180 (6 hours at $30/hour). If Au receives a bid price of $.031, you receive net proceeds from the sale of $24,800, less the cost of staff time of $445 which nets you a return of $24,355 — a rate of return of 2.44%.

It's fairly straightforward, but now let's skip the hypotheticals by letting you do the math. Download the spreadsheet and include your organization's own numbers.