Stop Debt Harassment with Help from a Debt Law Attorney

 

When dealing with debt collectors, federal Law gives you rights.  All debtors/consumers should be treated with rights or respect.  The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (15 U.S.C. § 1692 et seq.) protects these rights of consumers/debtors dealing with debt collector harassment.  If your rights are violated, you could be entitled to up to $1,000.00 in damages under the statute, and a debt collector could have to pay your attorney’s fees and costs.  As a result, these cases are taken on contingency.

Debt collectors, for example:

• Cannot demand that you pay more than you owe.
• Cannot try to charge you interest, a fee, or another charge in addition to the amount that you owe, unless the original contract that created the debt or the law of the state that you lived it at the time the debt was created allowed the charge.
• Cannot deposit a post-dated check that you gave them early.
• Cannot make an unauthorized withdrawal on your bank account or credit card.
• Cannot contact you by post card.
• Cannot talk to others who you have not authorized them to, or who are not your spouse, about the debt.
• Cannot sue you on a debt that is past the time in your state allowing them to sue you (past the statute of limitations).
• Cannot threaten you with action it is clear that they never intended to take.
• Cannot call before 8 in the morning or after 9 at night.
• Cannot curse or insult you.
• Cannot say the papers they send you are legal forms if they are not.
• Cannot make-up consequences for not paying your debt, such as that you’ll be arrested for not paying your debt.
• Cannot state that your social security benefits, supplemental security income, veterans’ benefits, and many other federal benefits will be garnished for credit card or private student loan debt.
• Cannot call you at work if your employer does not allow it and the collector has already been told this.
• Cannot call you during times that your say are inconvenient for you.
• Cannot call you while you’re at a place that is inconvenient for you.
• Cannot call you after you notify them in writing to cease calling you.
• Cannot pretend to be a lawyer or government agency.
• Cannot keep calling you if you do not owe anything anymore and you have already told them this.
• Cannot keep calling you if you have already told them that they have the wrong person that they are trying to collect from.
• Cannot lie about anything.

And many more…

Your home state might also have its own special law to protect you from debt collection harassment, in addition to the FDCPA, and it might also allow you to get some additional damages from a debt collector for any harassment you might be receiving from the collector’s illegal conduct towards you.

Should a debt collector treat you in any of the above ways, please contact our law firm immediately.  While your debt does not go away if you do indeed owe it, we would love to see if they have violated your rights and if they may then owe you monetary damages and also have to give you the money to pay your attorney’s fees and/or costs or pay it directly to your attorneys outright.