In 1977, the United States passed the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, which works to protect the rights of consumers against abusive and deceptive debt collectors. Though the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act does cover several different forms of communication – mail, telephone, or fax – there are very specific rules to which debt collectors must adhere.
For example, unless you agree otherwise, a debt collector is not permitted to call you at any time before 8:00 am or at any time after 9:00 pm, your local time. Calling outside of these hours – local time for you – is not permitted under the rules of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, and the debt collectors may be penalized for it should you take action against them.
Furthermore, debt collectors are not permitted to phone you in your place of employment if you indicate to them that you do not wish them to do so, or if the collector is aware – perhaps after contacting another employee of the same company – that the employer does not approve of such telephone calls during work time.
Thirdly, a debt collector is, under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, not permitted to contact you in any way – including telephone, letter, and fax – if that debt collector knows that you are being represented by an attorney. Should you have an attorney, the debt collector is required to discuss the debt with the attorney, not with you.
If you do not have an attorney, the debt collector is allowed to contact third parties – such as potential family members, etc – in order to discover your contact information, such as your telephone number, fax number, and mailing address – but are prohibited from contacting any of these third party individuals or businesses more than one time. In the majority of cases, the debt collector is not allowed to tell anyone except you or your attorney that you are a debtor.
Debt collectors cannot:
• Falsely imply that you have committed a crime by not paying your debt.
• Falsely imply that they are representatives of the government or are attorneys.
• Falsely imply that they work for or represent a credit bureau.
• Provide inaccurate credit information to you or any other third party, such as a credit bureau.
• Provide inaccurate information about the debt amount.
• Send you a fax or letter that looks as though it is from the government when it is not.
Debt collectors are also not permitted to state that:
• They will garnish your wages, seize your property, or sell your belongings (unless they are actually entitled to do so).
• You can be arrested for not paying a debt.
• A lawsuit or other actions will be taken when there is no intention to do so or when they are not legally entitled to do so.
Even if you do owe money, the debt collector is not allowed to use the telephone in order to harass you into paying that money back.