What Is The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act?

The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) is a federal law that governs debt collection practices. The FDCPA’s main purpose is to protect consumers from creditor harrassment and to prohibit debt collection companies from using unfair, deceptive and abusive practices and language in order to collect a debt from you.

Restrictions On Debt Collection Practices.

Time & Place: Debt collectors may not contact you at an unusual time or place or during a time they know is inconvenient for you. They are additionally only allowed to call you between 8am and 9pm (your local time zone).

Harassment: Debt collectors are not permitted to harass you or anyone else, over the phone or through any other form of contact.

Respect For Attorney Retainment: If you inform a creditor that you have retained an attorney to handle your file with that creditor that creditor must honor the retainment and only communicate with the attorney that has been retained. While you may be asked to provide the name and contact information (and should do so) after you have initially provided this information, the creditor should from then on only contact you to notify you that any further direct contact you will stop and will be replaced with contact to your attorney OR to notify you of any pending lawsuit filed against you. If an attorney contacts you outside of these instances request for them to stop contacting you and contact the attorney on file with them. If this repeats you may have an FDCPA case and should consult an attorney.

Disclosure Of The Alleged Debt: Any debt collector that contacts you should be able to validate the name of the creditor, the amount owed, and also MUST inform you that you can request the validation of the debt, or dispute it if you believe that there is an error. If the debt collector doesn’t provide this information when they first contact you, they are required to send you a written notice including that information within five days of the initial contact.

You can also request that the creditor give you the name and address of the original creditor. It is better to make this request in writing in order to maintain a copy of the records of the correspondence for yourself. If you make that request in writing within 30 days, the creditor or debt collector legally needs has to cease all attempts to collect the debt until the debt collector or creditor provides you with the requested information. If you don’t recognize the name of the creditor, ask if it might have purchased the debt from another company and, if so, what the name of that company is.