Company Facts

Altus was founded in Louisiana in 1994 and operates its corporate headquarters at 2121 Airline Drive, Suite 520, in Metairie, Louisiana 70001, in the New Orleans metropolitan area. The toll free line is 1-800-509-6060 and general email goes to info@trustaltus.com.

The company also appears in records and correspondence as Altus Global Trade Solutions, Inc., and industry listings identify it as part of ARMStrong Receivable Management. A business may see any of those names, and they refer to the same operation.

Offices extend well beyond Louisiana, with locations listed in Phoenix, Los Angeles, Denver, Jacksonville, Des Moines, Louisville, East Windsor, Philadelphia, Houston, and Toronto, and the company notes that several of those sites do not engage in collection activity.

Altus has been accredited by the Better Business Bureau since 1995.

What It Actually Does

The service list is broader than straight collections and reflects a commercial credit operation rather than a consumer call center.

Third party commercial collections is the core, meaning recovery of unpaid invoices between businesses on a contingency basis.

First party outsourcing handles earlier stage accounts receivable work in the client's own name, before an account is treated as a collection matter.

Business credit reports and asset and liability reports support the decision of whether a claim is worth pursuing at all, which is a service that has no real consumer equivalent because business information is public in a way personal information is not.

Legal escalation routes accounts to counsel where litigation is warranted, and international collections handle cross border claims through local partners.

Credit insurance claims handling supports clients who carry trade credit insurance and need a claim documented and filed.

The industries served are heavily weighted toward sectors where trade credit is the norm: agribusiness, chemical, construction, equipment rental, manufacturing, oil and gas, transportation, technology and SaaS, media, financial services, alternative lending, and vendor credit programs.

The Certifications Are the Signal Worth Reading

Commercial collections has a credentialing system that consumer collections largely lacks, and Altus holds the relevant ones.

Certification through Commercial Collection Agencies of America and the International Association of Commercial Collectors carries real requirements, including a separate trust account holding all client funds, surety bonding scaled to contingency revenue, minimum operating history, a threshold percentage of business that must be genuinely commercial, and annual education requirements.

The trust account requirement is the one a creditor should care about most, because it protects against the worst outcome in this business, which is an agency collecting your money and then failing.

Altus also publishes SOC 1 Type II and SOC 2 Type II attestations and PCI DSS compliance, which matter when a client is transmitting customer and financial data.

For a business evaluating any commercial agency, verifying certification and bonding is the diligence step that separates real firms from the rest, as covered in our overview of how B2B debt recovery works.

If Altus Contacts Your Business

Commercial claims follow different rules, and the differences work against the reflexes people bring from consumer debt.

The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act generally does not apply, because that statute covers debts incurred primarily for personal, family, or household purposes. There is no federal validation notice requirement, no 30 day dispute window that suspends collection, no call frequency presumption, and no right to demand that contact cease. A commercial collector may call your office repeatedly, speak with your staff, and contact your other officers.

What still applies is state law. Many states have unfair and deceptive practices statutes that reach business transactions, some impose commercial collection licensing and conduct rules, and fraud and defamation claims remain available.

The important exception runs the other way. If a principal signed a personal guarantee and the agency pursues that individual, the claim against the guarantor is generally a consumer collection matter with full federal protections attached. Businesses and their owners should understand which posture they are in.

The productive response to a commercial claim is documentary rather than procedural. Pull the contract or purchase order, the invoices, delivery confirmations, and any contemporaneous dispute correspondence. Determine whether the goods or services were delivered as specified, whether an offset or credit was documented at the time, and whether the amount reconciles.

Then respond in writing rather than ignoring it. Commercial claims escalate to litigation more readily than consumer ones because the amounts are larger and business debtors usually have locatable assets. Disputes raised contemporaneously carry weight; disputes raised for the first time after suit is filed do not.

The Clocks That Apply

Commercial limitations periods differ from consumer ones and are often shorter than businesses expect.

For contracts involving the sale of goods, the Uniform Commercial Code sets a four year period running from when the breach occurred, regardless of whether the aggrieved party knew about it, and the parties may shorten that to as little as one year by agreement but cannot extend it. That one year floor appears in standard terms and conditions more often than people notice, and a supplier whose own terms shorten the period has narrowed its own collection window.

Service contracts fall outside Article 2 and follow the state's general contract statute of limitations. A single customer relationship can involve both, with different clocks running on different invoices.

What Creditors Should Ask Before Placing

Verify certification, bonding, and the trust account, and get the licensing list for states where your debtors operate.

On economics, get the contingency rate schedule by claim size and age, since commercial rates typically run well below consumer rates for larger claims, often in the 10 to 25 percent range, and rise for small or aged ones. Confirm whether the fee is gross or net of costs, whether a minimum fee per claim applies, what the legal forwarding rate is, and what happens when a debtor pays you directly after placement. The contract provisions worth scrutinizing are covered in how to review a contingency fee collection contract.

Ask about industry experience specifically, because construction, transportation, equipment rental, and agribusiness each carry their own lien rights, prompt payment statutes, and trade norms.

Ask about the attorney network and who authorizes suit, and about international capability if you need it.

And place early. Commercial claims age like any other, and a business in distress pays whoever is most present. Where a judgment results, enforcement is its own project, covered in small claims judgment collection.

How It Compares

Altus is a specialist at the commercial end of the industry, competing with other certified B2B agencies and with the commercial units of diversified firms such as Caine & Weiner. The relevant comparison for a business is claim size, industry fit, certification, and net back rather than headline rate.

Consumer facing verticals work differently. Rental and medical collections turn on leases, ledgers, deposit dispositions, itemized bills, and insurance adjudication, and they carry a regulatory framework commercial claims do not. Advanced Collection Bureau works residential, apartment, student housing, and medical placements on contingency out of Rockledge, Florida, and can be reached at 321-633-4999 or through the get started page.