Using a Collection Agency to collect debt from prior tenants

[Melissa Faraias]

Hello BP community,

I am an out of state landlord with a rental in Bluffton SC. After a few months of trying to work with my long term tenants (who have previously always paid rent on time), I finally asked them to leave for non payment of rent. They chose to leave voluntarily to avoid an eviction and signed a document agreeing to pay the back rent payments owed (which is a significant amount). However once they completely moved out, they refused to answer my calls and messages. I reached out to a debt collection agency called National Credit Systems Inc. in an attempt to collect the payments owed. Has anyone used this agency or any debt collection agency and has had success with it? Even if I do not recover the money, I do want to have them reported to the credit bureaus etc. so that they do not do this to another unsuspecting landlord in the future. Thank you in advance for your input.