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. Did you know that debt collectors can’t contact you at work, if you tell them that you aren’t allowed phone calls at work? That’s just one right you have: there are many more.
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The Cease and Desist letter, otherwise known as the C&D, is quite possibly the most powerful tool available in your arsenal of tactics against debt collectors.  It is one of the most simple ideas yet, it throws a collector in a heap of legal bondage that guarantees they will never contact you again.
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The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act covers your rights as a consumer in debt.  However, this is not your only weapon in your anti bill collector arsenal. Debt collectors can only come after you for a set time period, until your debt expires.  It sounds too good to be true, but it isn’t.
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