subject: Fair Debt Collection Practices Act - Know Your Rights As A Debtor [print this page] Dealing with creditors and debt collection agencies is definitely a difficult ordeal. Their frustrating and persistence manner of tracking you down no matter where you are can be extremely irritating for you, your family and even your fellow colleagues.
Thankfully, to protect the overly abused debtors, there's the Fair Debt Practices Act or the FDCPA in short. It is a federal law that bans unfair debt collection practices that will have an effect on the quality of debtors' life considerably.
While this article doesn't list the whole act, it is great to know the common illegal debt collection practices in order that you won't be intimidated and know how to deal with them.
1. Contact third parties including your families, friends, neighbors or employers regarding your debt. Unless the court has granted them permission for your creditors to do this, it is illegal for them to contact third parties regarding your debt. But they might contact third parties for the reason of locating you. Nevertheless, creditors should not reveal why they are searching for you, unless you are a minor.
2. Contact you at unusual hours of the day - late night or very early in the morning. Under normal circumstances, any time between 8am to 9pm is a suitable time for them to call. Under no situation should your creditors call you when you're sleeping, for example at 3am.
3. Contacting you repeatedly by phone or not identifying themselves when they call.
4. Continue to contact you when you're represented by a lawyer or when they have received a written request from you to stop calling you. ( a cease letter)
5. Make threats, use obscene, profane or abusively languages and comments on you.
6. Misleading you that they are affiliated with any state or federal government, or the legal status of your debts.
These are only a few of the common illegal debt collection practices. The FDCPA bans just about any abusive, dishonest and unfair debt collection practices that may have an effect on the quality of your life significantly.
To discover more about your rights as a debtor, visit www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fdcpa/fdcpact.htm for much more information. It's always good to know your rights because they give you a way of handling your creditors such that they do not take advantage of you. Nevertheless, understand that the purpose of the FDCPA is to assist you to deal with creditors and not to ignore them and your debts.
by: Alex Tesla.
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