Recognize Illegal Debt Collection Practices

Each year, when the Federal Trade Commission compiles its statistics on complaints against businesses, one industry tops all the rest. Debt collectors, particularly third-party debt collectors, garner more consumer complaints than any other business, year after year. And the number of complaints just keeps rising. In fact, according to the FTC, complaints against debt collectors rose nearly 17 percent in 2010, to nearly 150,000 individual complaints. The real number of people with legitimate complaints against debt collectors is much higher, since many people who are threatened, intimidated, ridiculed, abused and otherwise deprived of their rights as consumers don't even realize that their rights have been violated.

What Are Illegal Debt Collection Practices?

The FDCPA lays out several categories of abusive and illegal debt collection practices and provides remedies you can use if you are abused by a debt collector or debt collection agency.

Debt Collector Harassment

Harassment by a debt collector can take many forms. Most commonly, it involves using the telephone. The FDCPA regulates when and how often a debt collector may contact you and limits what they can say and do in their attempts to collect money from you.

The FDCPA states that a debt collector may not call you at a time or place that is not convenient to you. This is generally accepted to mean that they may not call you before 8 A.M. or after 9 P.M. in your time zone. A debt collector may call you at work, but if you inform the caller that he can't call you at work, he must stop calling your place of employment. Debt collectors are also not allowed to use the telephone with the express intent to harass you by making repeated and excessive telephone calls. While the FDCPA doesn't define "excessive" or "harassment" in precise terms, if a debt collection agency calls you more than twice a week about the same account or calls you repeatedly in the same day, or calls you repeatedly and hangs up on you, most people would consider it harassment. Other things that are considered to be illegal debt collection practices under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act include:

1. Using Abusive Language. A debt collector may not swear at you, call you abusive or obscene names or denigrate your character.

2. Making Threats. Debt collectors may not make threats against you or your property that they don't intend to or can't carry out. For example, a collector who is trying to collect an overdue telephone bill cannot threaten to have your car repossessed or your home foreclosed because they do not have the legal right to touch your property.

3. Misrepresenting Themselves. A debt collector must identify himself as a debt collector when he calls you. He may not mislead you into believing that he is a lawyer if he is not, or a police officer or other officer of the court.

4. Embarrassing You. Some of the rules laid out for debt collectors are designed to keep debt collectors from using embarrassment as a tool to intimidate you into paying them. They may not call your neighbors, family members, landlord or employers and discuss your bills with them. In fact, they are only allowed to contact other people about you once, and they are only allowed to ask how to contact you. The caller may not even mention that they are trying to collect a debt or announce that they are bill collectors. In addition, debt collectors may not publish your name in the newspaper or on a website, nor leave answering machine messages that disclose your status with regards to debt.

If a debt collector engages in any of these illegal debt collection practices, he is violating one or more debt collection laws. You have recourse to stop the harassment. First, keep a record of every contact you have with the debt collection agency. Second, know your rights under the fair debt collection laws. You may be able to stop the harassing telephone calls and other illegal practices by sending a cease and desist letter. Finally, contact a lawyer that specializes in debt collection abuse cases. When you're being harassed by professionals who use threats, intimidation and other illegal debt collection practices, it helps to have a knowledgeable fair debt attorney in your corner.