Stop Bill Collectors!

Thinking of writing a cease and desist letter to your creditors? (See this article for a sample cease and desist letter). It’s not as simple as writing a letter to your creditor telling them to stop calling you. Here are 5 vital facts you need to know before you send the cease and desist letter to stop creditors from hassling you.
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If you want to stop creditors from calling, you’re going to have to pick up the phone and talk to them. That may seem counterintuitive (why the heck would you want to talk to them?), but you–like them–are going to follow a script that’s guaranteed to have them stop calling you. Peace is just a few phone calls away.
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If you are being harassed by debt collectors, take a leaf out of Craig Cunningham’s book. Cunningham owes $100,000 in debt, and he’s inundated with calls from debt collectors. But he doesn’t mind: he’s earned a whopping $20,000 by answering bill collector calls: every penny of it has come from the debt collectors themselves! Most people who receive calls from debt collectors dread picking up the phone, but not Cunningham. He’s beat debt collectors at their own game by catching debt collectors violating federal law, and suing them in court.
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Tenancy by the entirety is a tool you can use to outwit debt collectors. It allows a husband and wife to own property together as a single legal entity. Why should you care about this legal tool? Because judgment creditors for either party cannot put a lien against your property. That means if you own a debt (and not your spouse), the creditor cannot touch a penny of any interest you have in a tenancy by the entirety item.
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This post should probably be (more accurately) called How to Stop Bill Collectors From Seizing Your Car, Your House, and your Personal Belongings. If they win a judgment against you, they will take your stuff. They will get a nice police office to come to your house and empty it of your belongings, and there won’t be a thing you can do about it.
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A writ of garnishment is when part of your wages are withheld and sent to your creditors. It can only occur after a court order following a judgment against you. If your employer receives a writ, there are stiff legal penalties for his failure to comply, so you won’t be able to stop the writ via your employer. There are, however, many things you can do to both prevent wage garnishment and to stop garnishment once it has started:
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There are too many people in debt today that have no idea what to do if a debt collector starts harassing them.  Furthermore, these same people would have no clue on how to go about reporting them to the authorities.  But, it’s not their fault.  Honestly, debt collectors can throw phrases at you that will make you think that the law is not on your side.  In reality, you have most of the weight where debt collection law is concerned.

If you suspect that a debt collector or agency is violating the law or being coercive or deceptive with you, then you need to report them to the proper authorities immediately.  In this case, you would report them to the Federal Trade Commission, for FTC for short.

The FTC operates a page on their website (www.ftc.gov) that is dedicated to reporting creditors who are harassing or deceiving you.  But, you simply cannot get off the phone with a harassing debt collector and report them.  You need to get some more information before you proceed with your claim.

Here are a few tips to help extract the necessary information out of the debt collector or agency:

1. Always have a pen and paper ready when a debt collector calls.  As the phone is ringing, jot down the date, time, and phone number on your caller ID.
2. Get the name and physical location of the debt collection agency that is calling you.
3. Get the name and/or operator ID number of the collector that is calling you.
4. Inform the debt collector that their practices are unfair and/or illegal and that you will be reporting them.

Now, you need to work this information into the conversation lightly.  If a debt collector is aware that he or she is doing something illegal and they suspect you are trying to gather information about them, they will most likely hang up or refuse to give you the information.

What you need to do is play along with them.  Gradually work the elements above into the conversation but do it passively.  Your goal is to obtain as much information as possible without the debt collector catching onto what you are doing.

You can still file a claim with the FTC if you don’t have any of the information above, however, the less information you have the longer it will take the FTC to take proper legal action.

Once you have all of your information jotted down, head to the FTC’s website and file a claim.  Usually, the FTC will give you a phone call or send you an email with the status of your complaint.  If you have not heard from them in a while, you can call their toll-free hotline at 1-877-382-4357.

As someone in debt, you have more legal rights than you could possibly imagine.  In fact, debt collectors are extremely limited in how they can contact you.  They are also greatly restricted on how they can get money out of you as well.

Here are a few tips to get you started:

1. A debt collector may never harass you at any point in time, ever.
2. A debt collector cannot be deceptive with you under any circumstance (i.e. “You will go to jail if you don’t pay).
3. If you tell a debt collector not to contact you at work, they may never do it again for any reason.
4. The only other person a debt collector can contact regarding your debt is your spouse and your attorney.
5. A debt collector may never use a false company name in order to try and obtain your debt.

Though these are the basics, they cover a good amount of practices that are widely recognized as unfair.  And unfortunately for you, collection agencies prey on people who are unfamiliar with the law.

But why would a collector become so hell-bent on extracting your debt out of you?  Simple.  Because they work off a commission.  A debt collector gets a percentage of your total debt if they are able to successfully extract it from you.  And if you think about it, that can be a very large sum of money depending upon the amount of debt that you are in.  No wonder why they are so pesky!

The Federal Trade Commission regulates the policies and practices of debt collection in the United States.  They are the oversight for the collectors and agencies in this country.  Unfortunately, many debt collection agencies who harass do not get reported at all or they are reported improperly.  Personally, I have called the police on a debt collector a few years ago.  I later found out that doing this will land you with a $25 false report fine and a warning.  It took me quite some time to realize that I needed to report this abusive behavior to the FTC.

Don’t fall into the same mistake I made.  Take a minute or two after the phone call to cool yourself down.  Once you feel your emotions are relatively stable, log onto the FTC’s website at www.ftc.gov.  From there, click on the consumer protection tab.  You can find a boatload of information that was not mentioned here and the specifics on exactly what a debt collector can and cannot do.

A previous post on this site was made by Janice informing everyone about the FDCPA and what your rights are as a consumer in debt.  However, this is not your only weapon in your arsenal of anti-collector goodies.  Did you know that legally, your debt expires?  It sounds too good to be true but behold, it isn’t.

It is called the Statue of Limitations and it varies from state-to-state.  Basically, it puts an awesome little expiration date on debt that you owe.

So, what does this mean?  Well, if you utilize some of the evasive tactics that this blog provides for you, then you can literally dodge your creditors left and right until the debt you owe expires.

The nastiest part about collectors is that even if your debt is expired, they will not inform you about it as they are not legally required to do so.  Therefore, they will still try to collect the already expired debt, which you are not legally obligated to pay.

Simply informing your creditor over the phone that the debt is expired will most likely be a futile attempt as creditors usually become extremely belligerent when they are approached about the state’s Statue of Limitations.  Your best bet is to send a cease and desist letter to the company informing them that your debt has expired.  Make sure that you remember to cite the state’s SoL within the letter for reference.

Remember that a C&D letter informs an entity that if they do not cease their actions immediately, you will take legal action against them.  Follow through with your threat if they do not stop.  You can show them that you mean business if a lawsuit, drafted by yourself or your legal counsel, lands on their desk at 8 o’clock in the morning!

As stated above, sending the C&D letter to your creditor is best done through a lawyer or law firm, as a letter mailed to a creditor from a personal address is usually taken lightly and less-than-serious.  The goal is to flex your muscles and puff your chest at your creditors and show them that you will come out, guns blazing, if they do not quit their sneaky tactics.

You can find a list of the Statue of Limitation laws by state here: http://www.carreonandassociates.com/articles/statute.htm.

Please remember that SoL laws change without notice as most laws do.  You can check out your state’s website or head down to the local courthouse to find the most recent and updated SoL within your residing state.

State-by-state SoL laws are one of the most powerful tools that a consumer in debt has to fight the big collection agencies.  It allows for a criminal lawsuit (harassment) to be brought up against a creditor and it nullifies and voids a person’s debt entirely if said debt is legally past-due.

Congress enacted the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) to address the “abusive, deceptive, and unfair” practices of debt collectors. This article tells you what credit collection agencies can (and cannot do).
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