Phone Collection Illegal Tactics and Methods

When most people thing of collections, they imagine being dunned by phone call after phone call. Fortunately, there are phone collections laws—rules saying what debt collectors can, and more importantly, can’t do, over the phone, known as phone collection laws.

Defining Collections Agency

A collections agency, or debt collector, is a business or person who’s in the business of collecting for others. It’s not the creditor him-, her-, or itself, or anyone employed by the creditor—such as a credit card issuer’s collections department. That’s an important distinction to bear in mind, since debtors have more protections from debt collectors than they do from the actual creditors. If the creditor is calling, it can be aggressive, even obnoxious, in a way that a collections agency can’t, or else it is known as collection agency illegal tactic.

Illegal Phone Collection Tactics

The following are collection agency illegal practices. If a collections agency uses any of these illegal tactics, they can get in trouble.

No contacting third parties about a debt
No making repeated telephone calls to harass the debtor
Not calling at unreasonable times, such as before 8 A.M. or after 9 P.M.
No calling at an inappropriate place, such as at work, if they debtor collector knows or should know the location is inappropriate
No calling a debtor directly, if the debtor has an attorney—in that case, communications must be through the attorney
No calling a debtor at all, after the debtor has told the collections agency to stop—debtors may send a written notice requiring that all communication stops

A debt collector who does any of these things is engaging in illegal collections. Debtors have rights—creditors and collections agencies may try to collect valid debts, but only in a valid or proper way.

Debtor Rights Legal Assistance

A debtor right's attorney can be an enormous help to a debtor facing collections. All communications can be routed through the lawyer, which allows an experienced professional to negotiate payment without the debtor having to deal directly with a debt collector.

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