Don’t Let Debt Collectors Harass You Over The Phone

Many of us have had, at one time or another, the experience of receiving harassing phone calls from collection agencies wanting us to pay up immediately. They call during dinner time, on weekends, in the evening… and they are very good at intimidation techniques.

However, there is some protection available to you from these harassing techniques, originating in the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), which can be easily found and read on the Internet. The following will summarize a procedure you can follow that flows from the Act itself to drastically reduce the level of harassment you are experiencing. (I did say reduce, not eliminate, as there will always be unscrupulous collectors willing to break the law in pursuit of coercing a payment out of you.)

Please understand, you probably do owe the debt. You should repay what you owe. However, if there are extenuating circumstances preventing such repayment, and even if there aren’t, you are not required to be subjected to telephone calls beyond what is allowed by the statutes and laws of this country.

There is a way to navigate this matter successfully and securely. When a credit collector calls and you feel you are being harassed, this is what to do:

Get their name and mailing address. Get their title if they have one, and/or their collector ID number. They may hang up on you when this is requested so you may have to do this a number of times before you get the information you want. You also may want to immediately ask for a supervisor who may be more willing to comply and give you the information you request.

Then, simply say something like, “Pursuant to the FDCPA, you are hereby notified to cease telephone communications with me at my home or my place of employment.” Then simply hang up the phone! No need to enter into any further discourse and if you wait, the collector will attempt to move you into a discussion again and again. They are trained well and are very effective.

You will then want to send that specific collector who called you a certified letter with a return signature required, stating the following:

Date
Collector Name

Pursuant to the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act, you are hereby notified to cease telephone communications with me at my home or my place of employment regarding the collections of the alleged debt you are attempting to collect from me. Do not contact my employer.

Further contact by you or anyone employed by your company will be construed as harassment, and you and whoever disregards this written notice may be sued to the maximum extent allowed for by the Act, 15 USC 1692.

Your Name (Print and sign your name)
Telephone Number

Save a copy of the letter and, of course, the return receipt. If you have the fax number, send it by fax as well and save both the fax amd print out a report indicating it was successfully transmitted. This should reduce the calls dramatically.