Stop Bill Collectors!

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.

Fortunately for you, when it comes to debt collectors, the law is on your side.

Under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, a debt collector or agency cannot under any circumstance disguise, conceal, or withhold the name of the collector from you, the debtor.  That means when you ask for the collector’s name and agency, they can’t hang up on you or give you a false name.  They must give you their first name and the name of the company that they work for.  It is a federal crime to provide (or not) any information otherwise.

An issue that many people have is that they actually feel inferior to the debt collector or agency: they feel that the collector is in charge of the situation. Actually, it is the other way around.  You, the debtor, are in charge of everything, from the times a collector can call to how they can contact you.  The law never leaves your side.

Debt collectors have an entire arsenal of psychology that they are waiting to fire at you.  They probably fire it at you and you don’t even know it.  So take back your mind and show that bill collector who’s boss!

The next time you get a phone call from a debt collector, card them.  Seriously, card them.  As soon as they identify themselves as a bill collector, ask for their first and last name, their operator/employee ID number, the name of the collection agency they work for, and the collection agency’s exact mailing address.  If they run through it fast, tell them to slow down and that the conversation will not move on until you have all of this information written down.

After you have everything, ask the collector to go over all of the information again for clarification purposes.  Also, ask them to read slow so you can make sure that you have everything.  Ask them to spell each letter phonetically (Alpha, Charlie, Bravo…). Hey, for the heck of it, tell them that you are asking this because you have the right to know this information under the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act.

Your overall goal is to make yourself feel like you are in charge, and inform the collector that you are informed.  This way, they will think twice before pulling a fast one on you, like debt collectors all too often do.

Related posts:

1. The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act FDCPA in Plain English
2. Debt Collector Harrassment: Craig Cunningham’s Secret Weapon
3. Know Your Rights About Debt Collectors
4. The Easy Way to Sue Your Bill Collectors For Harrassment…and Win!
5. Fun Way to Deal With Debt Collectors: I’m Not John Smith!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 at 5:13 pm and is filed under General Info, communicating with agencies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.