Stop Bill Collectors!

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).

§804. Finding Where You Live

This section of the act says the collection agency can call your friends and relatives to find out where you are. But:

• They can only contact them once.
• They cannot say that they are in the debt collection business (exception: if your friend or relative asks who they work for, they must tell them).
• They cannot tell your friends and relatives that you owe money.

§ 805. Communicating With You

• A debt collector can’t contact you after 8 o’clock p.m. and before 9 o’clock a.m., your time.
• They can’t contact you (or your friends or relatives) at all if you are represented by an attorney.
• They can’t contact you at your job if your employer doesn’t allow it (you’ll need to tell the agency that your employer doesn’t allow phone calls).
• If you write a letter to the agency asking them to stop communicating with you, they must not contact you either by phone or mail (see my post on how to send a collection agency letter

§ 806. Harassment or abuse

• A debt agency can’t threaten violence or anything else illegal.
• They can’t call you repeatedly during the day, although the law doesn’t actually say what is reasonable.
• They cannot use profanity.
• They cannot place public notices in newspapers with “deadbeat” names.
• Bill collectors have to identify themselves to you when they call.
• They cannot make hang up calls or engage in heavy breathing calls or other harassing behavior.

§ 807. False or misleading representations

• A debt collector can’t lie to you. For example, they can’t pretend to be a government agency, attorney, or police officer.

§ 808. Unfair practices

• A credit agency can’t tack on unreasonable fees or charges—they have to follow the law.
• They can’t suddenly deposit postdated checks without telling you, and they can’t deposit a postdated check early.
• They can’t call you collect.
• They can’t threaten to take your house or car (unless they have a legal right to do so—like a mortgagee).
• They can’t send you postcards or identify on the outside of an envelope that they are in the debt collection business.

§ 809. Validation of debts

• If you write a letter to the agency requesting information about the debt, the agency must provide you with the amount of the debt and the name of the original creditor.
• If you write and say that you dispute the debt, the agency can’t contact you until they have validated all of the information or obtained a copy of the judgment.

§ 810. Multiple debts

• If you do send a debt collection agency a payment, they must post it to the account you specify, and they can’t post the payment to any account you are disputing.

§ 811. Legal actions by debt collectors

• If a debt collector intends to bring action on you (say, to foreclose on a house), they have to take the legal action in the place where the property is located. In other words, they can’t sue to foreclose in Los Angeles if your house is located in New York.
• If they sue you for something other than property, they have to sue you in the area that you signed the contract or in the place where you live.

§ 812. Furnishing certain deceptive forms

• Basically credit agencies can’t send you a letter and pretend that you owe a debt to anyone else, or state that your debt has been sold to someone else when it hasn’t.

§ 813. Civil liability

• This allows for heavy financial penalties if the debt collectors break the law.

§ 818. Exception for certain bad check enforcement programs operated by private entities

• If you write bad checks you may not be covered by these protections. Often, bad check writers are dealt with by the District Attorney’s office and may face criminal prosecution.

Related posts:

1. ID, Please! How to use the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act to Outwit Bill Collectors.
2. Collection Agency Letter to Stop Harrassment Calls
3. Know Your Rights About Debt Collectors
4. Surprising Fact Debt Collectors Won’t Tell You: Your Debt Expires!
5. Debt Collector Harrassment: Craig Cunningham’s Secret Weapon

This entry was posted on Friday, October 9th, 2009 at 7:22 am and is filed under Debt Collection Law. 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.