Stop Bill Collectors!

Thousands of people have successfully sued harassing debt collection agencies and won. the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act allows you to claim up to $1,000 for each violation of the FDCPA. In addition to the $1,000 per violation (one harassing phone call from a debt collector counts as a violation), you can claim financial damages, court costs, and legal fees. Here’s how to do it: the easy way.
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Filing for bankruptcy isn’t cheap! A quick survey of lawyers in my area put the cost for filing with a lawyer between $1,500 and $3,000 for a simple bankruptcy. If you’re swimming in bills and deluged with debt collector calls, you may be considering bankruptcy as an option.

But here’s the #1 thing that people filing bankruptcy don’t know about: and it could save you thousands of dollars.
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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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Behind every woman there’s a great man, and behind every debt collector harassment there is a dumb lawyer. Think about it–the great lawyers (those lawyers who go to Yale or Harvard or graduate in the top 5% of their class), go on to lucrative careers on Wall Street or Beverly Hills. The lawyers that graduate in the bottom of their class (or go to one of those for-profit, no-name law diploma mills) end up working in a cubicle for XYZ debt collections. It’s not hard to be smarter than your average dumb lawyer, which is why it’s so easy to not give them a dime.
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Missed payments, delayed payments, and inability to pay: these are some of the reasons why creditors make harassing calls.  They are able to get a lot of information about you and you probably don’t know how. You might be wondering how they can retrieve the majority, if not all, of your personal information: the answer is that they can legally pull a copy of your credit report and use that information against you.
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I can personally account for the times when a telemarketer called me and used a fake name.  The guy could barely speak English and he told me that his name was Jeff.  Yeah, right.  Unfortunately, they have every right to do this.  Telemarketers can conceal their names or even refuse to give their identity to you in order to protect their company’s assets, namely from getting sued.
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Ah, nothing like the good ole’ switch-a-roo to stop bill collector calls! I mentioned in a previous article that the best way to stop creditors is to get a prepaid cell phone (read this article to find out why prepaid cell phones will stop bill collector calls dead). This method, the good ole’ switch-a-roo, will cost you only a few bucks a month (isn’t that worth it for peace and quiet?).
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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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Sometimes, you just have to get a little humorous with your debt collectors. A little laughter is good for the mind, body, and soul every once in a while, especially if you’re feeling overwhelmed by phone calls. If you’ve followed my advice to send a cease and desist letter, relief from harassing debt collectors is likely a few days away. In the meantime, why not have a little fun to lighten your mood?
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If you’re wondering how to stop bill collectors, you could try moving. Not by moving to a different house, but just making it look like you moved, by changing your address. Here’s how to get bill collectors chasing their tails with a fake address.
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