Know your rights with debt collectors

You have many legal rights when being pursued by a debt collection agency. These rights come from the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, or FDCPA, passed in 1977 to protect consumers from abusive debt collection policies.  Some of your rights include:

Contact methods
A debt collection agency can contact you by telephone (most common), mail, fax, or in person. They may only contact you between the hours of 8 AM and 9 PM, unless you give them permission to do so otherwise. If you inform the debt collector that you are not allowed to receive phone calls at your employer, they must also cease from contacting you there.

Providing you with a written notice
After you are contacted for the first time by a debt collector, they have to provide you with a written notice notifying you of the amount of money you owe, the creditor whom you owe the money to, and how you to proceed if you do not believe you owe the money.

Contacting other people
A debt collector can only contact people to find out where you live, where you work, and how they can reach you on the phone. Usually, they cannot tell them you owe a debt.

Not allowed to harass or intimidate
This leaves a lot to be interpreted, but debt collectors are not allowed to harass, abuse, or oppress you or any third party they contact about your debt. It is clear, however, that contacting you several times a day is not considered to be harassment.

Debt collectors are not able to say the following:

• If you do not pay your debt, you will be arrested. These are civil matters, not criminal – hence you cannot be arrested.
• They are an attorney (unless they are) or are a part of the government
• You have committed a crime.
• They will garnish your wages or seize your property unless they are not only actively prepared to do so, but that it is legal in your state to do so as well.

Debt collectors are not able to do the following:

• Provide credit bureaus with false information
• Send official looking documents as if from a court or government agency.
• Deposit a postdated check early
• Unless authorized to do so, collect an amount greater than your debt

For a fully copy of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, click here.