Goal

Decline a case you cannot accept by providing a valid reason. The system will validate your reason and notify the creditor with an appropriate message.

Prerequisites

Before you can decline a case, ensure the following:

The case is in Pending Verification status. Decline is not available once the case has left Pending Verification - including after you have moved it to More Info Required (Needs Additional Details), and once it is Active, Paused or Closed. From those states the Decline action is simply not in the case's Actions menu.
You have reviewed the case details to determine why you cannot accept it.

📋 Non-Exclusive Partners

Non-Exclusive (Legal Network) partners do not normally receive auto-assigned cases with a decline option. Instead, you receive lead offers and choose whether to submit a quote. The exception is a geographic routing override: where Debitura has agreed with a client that their cases in a country always go to one named partner, those cases are assigned directly and the decline action described above applies to them. You can decline a lead offer outright, or simply not respond.

Declining a lead offer is final for you: the quote form, the lead chat and the decline option are removed afterwards, and a later attempt to quote on that offer is rejected. The lead itself stays open, and other partners in the network can still quote on it. See Partner types for details on how your workflow differs.

Steps

Open the case from Cases Received.
Go to Cases Received in the Partner Portal and click on the case you want to decline.
Review the case details.
Confirm you cannot accept this case. Common reasons include conflicts of interest, jurisdictional limitations, missing documentation, debtor insolvency, or cases below your minimum threshold.
Select the decline action.
Locate the decline option in the case actions. This is only available for cases in Pending Verification status.
Enter your decline reason.
Provide a free-text explanation of why you cannot accept the case. Be specific and factual. The system uses AI to validate your reason and categorize it into one of the approved decline categories.
Submit the decline.
Confirm your decision. Once submitted, the system will:

Validate that your reason is legitimate and falls within approved categories.
Generate a professional message to send to the creditor explaining the decline.
Record the decline in the case history.

Valid decline reasons

The system recognizes 13 approved decline categories. Your free-text explanation will be mapped to one of these:

Business and operational reasons:

Conflict of interest - You have competing interests that prevent you from taking the case.
Custom terms requested - The client has requested non-standard terms.
Below minimum - The case principal is below your minimum threshold.
Untraceable debtor - You cannot verify or locate the debtor.

Legal and jurisdictional reasons:

Out of jurisdiction - The case is outside your agreed geographic coverage.
Time-barred - The debt has passed the statute of limitations.
Regulatory restriction - You are not licensed to collect in this jurisdiction.
Sanctions or legal block - Legal restrictions prevent you from working with the debtor or creditor.

Case quality reasons:

Misclassified (not pre-legal) - The case is disputed or requires legal action rather than pre-legal collection.
Insolvency or ceased - The debtor is bankrupt, deceased, or dissolved.
Duplicate - This case has already been submitted to you.
Missing essential information - Critical information is missing and you cannot work the case. Note that if you have already moved the case to More Info Required to ask for it, the Decline action is no longer available. Close the case instead - with Unresponsive Client when the client simply did not answer, or Invalid Case Data when the information on the case is actually wrong or unusable.
Fraud or scam risk - The case shows clear signs of being fraudulent.

If your decline reason does not match any approved category or appears invalid, it may require manual review.

Result

After you decline a case:

The case moves from Pending Verification to Collecting Quotes status.
The case is shared with our partner network so other partners can view it and submit quotes.
The creditor receives a notification with the system-generated decline message explaining why you declined.

Exception: the case is only reshared with the network if the creditor has quote sharing enabled and the creditor is not a client managed by another collection partner. If either does not hold, the case is not distributed - it is closed immediately with the close code Case never started and is excluded from your performance scoring.

Edge cases

Can I decline after accepting a case?
No. The decline action is only available during the Pending Verification stage. Once you accept a case (Active status), you must use appropriate close codes if you need to stop working on it. See Case status definitions for available close codes.
I moved the case to More Info Required and the client never replied - can I still decline it?
No. The Decline case action, and the automatic Case never started code that comes with it, exist only while the case is in Pending Verification. From More Info Required you exit through Close case instead. Use Unresponsive Client when the client simply did not answer, and Invalid Case Data only when the information on the case is actually wrong or unusable. Nothing closes the case for you - there is no reminder ladder and no automatic closure for a case sitting in More Info Required.
What if I want the case but need different terms?
Instead of declining, you can submit a custom quote. This keeps the case with you while allowing you to propose non-standard pricing or terms.
Does declining affect my performance score?
No. Cases closed with the Case never started status are excluded from your collection score and case engagement calculations. Valid declines are not penalized.
What happens if I do not respond to a case in Pending Verification?
You should always respond by either accepting, declining, or requesting additional details. Leaving cases unattended in Pending Verification creates tasks and may affect your responsiveness metrics.

Case lifecycle - Understand all case states and transitions.
How to submit a custom quote - Alternative when standard terms do not fit.
Partner types - Differences between Exclusive and Legal Network partners.

Collection Partners: How to decline a case