The biggest debt Michael Colombo ever collected was $1 million.

An institutional broker had received the payment in an upfront recruiting bonus and then jumped to another firm before working off or repaying the forgivable loan. Ironically, collecting from the man wasn't hard, Colombo recalls. Since the debtor was an established trader with a profitable book, he didn't want legal trouble. He agreed to Colombo's negotiations and paid up after his new firm gave him his upfront bonus.

If only all such collections were that easy.

"I believe that I should collect on anything short of death or a bankruptcy," says Colombo, who serves as president of Lyndhurst, N.J.-based collection agency StreetWide Asset Recovery Group. "But I don't want to sound cold. If a person dies, we'd probably go back to the firm and have them call us off."

Colombo's company is rare among the nation's collection agencies because he only pursues two types of individuals: brokers who are ex-employees of firms and people who owe trading debts. Yet StreetWide doesn't just handle collections. If necessary, the company can also refer securities attorneys across the U.S. Colombo says he's now handling roughly 450 cases for 20 client companies-with the debts ranging from $1,000 to $1 million. In his 23 years in the collecting business, Colombo estimates that he has recovered more than $50 million in overdue debt.

But Colombo doesn't fit Hollywood's stereotype of a collection agent. That's not accidental. The Brooklyn-born Colombo knows that some people expect him to be a "leg breaker." Yet his voice is soft, precise and somewhat optimistic. He's also highly polished and nattily dressed, wearing a blue suit, white shirt and cuff links while explaining to OWS how he recovers money from deadbeat advisors.

Then a phone call interrupts his conversation. Colombo--who's sitting in a conference room that he uses high above Manhattan's financial district-picks up. It's a debtor who owes $65,000 to one of Colombo's clients. He's checking in to let Colombo know he's trying to arrange a payment plan. If all goes well, the broker says, a bank soon will approve him for a home equity loan. With that loan, he'll start regular repayments to his old company.

Colombo is gracious and reassuring. "Good. OK, keep me posted."

That's the Colombo way. After all, he's not a bounty hunter. He doesn't arrest his targets. He doesn't physically track them down at home or at work.

Sometimes he has to use Accurint--an Internet service of LexisNexis that rifles through Social Security numbers--to locate hard-to-find individuals. Usually, however, his targets' whereabouts are public information and are listed with the NASD. That's because most of the individuals still work for brokerage firms.

Still, while the process of tracking down deadbeat advisors isn't tough, it can be frustrating once they're found. When Colombo locates the advisors, they often want to play hardball. "Why don't these guys pay?" he asks. "A lot of times, their egos get involved. Some complain that the company didn't give them what it had promised, or they think they can play the waiting game until a case gets to arbitration. They hire an attorney that tells them they don't have to pay back-even though the attorney requires a $5,000 retainer check."

In Colombo's experience, the typical debtor broker is someone who jumps from firm to firm. In his most extreme case, he chased an advisor who had been at 17 companies in five years. Colombo says he has seen some brokers run from as many as three former employers at the same time.

While Colombo declines to reveal exactly how much he keeps from his collections, he doesn't make money from cases on which he doesn't collect. He says his average recovery is for 80 to 90 cents on the dollar, and he notes that StreetWide settles roughly 75% of cases that clients ask him to pursue. That's an impressive percentage of collections, according to one larger competitor in the industry.

"It depends on the size, volume and age of the account--but I consider a 50% hit rate very good," says Patrick Pinto, vice chairman of Oxford Management Services, a Melville, N.Y., company with more than 300 employees that recovers debt from a variety of industries.

While advisors dole out some of the most important guidance their clients will ever need, the number of brokers who poorly manage their own financial lives is astounding. And it's not just advisors who pile up debt on the Street; a good deal of individual investors do, too. Colombo says that the total deadbeat debt of brokers and clients currently tops $1 billion.