The Bleeping Collection
Agencies
Nobody finds themselves considering
bankruptcy
unless they have been subjected to the unrelenting harrassment
of creditors and their pit-bulls, the collection
agencies. To be fair, a creditor has the right to
contact you concerning your debts and your intent to repay
that debt. What I have seen, however, is that the
tactics used by the creditors and collection agencies is
frequently way beyond normal reminder calls about late
payments. Instead, these people who call and call and
call are using a form of psychological torture to extract
payments.
There is a law that governs the way creditors and
collection agencies can communicate with you concering the
debts. It's called the
Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (the
FDCPA). Under the FDCPA, creditors are not allowed to
lie, they are not allowed to call you an "unreasonable" number
of times and they are not allowed to communicate information
about your debt to third parties. Unfortunately,
collection agencies hire people who don't know or don't care
about the law and they will use lies, bullying and all sorts
of outrageous tactics in an attempt to extort a payment out of
you. Oh boy, I could tell you some stories about
outrageous things that have happened to my clients at the
hands of collection agencies. I bet you have some
stories you could share too.
You do have rights to sue a creditor or collection agency
that has violated the FDCPA but it's not cheap or
easy. You have to hire a consumer rights attorney,
keep all your evidence of the violations, and wait months and
months or years for the court process to give you
justice. If you don't have the time, money or interest
in suing a collection agency or creditor for violating the
FDCPA, but you still want to take some kind of action against
them, you can file a complaint against the agency at the
Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) website
here.
(Note, the website isn't that easy to navigate, you have to
scroll down a bit to get to the complaint form.) The
Federal Trade Commission won't resolve your individual issue
or take any action on your behalf, but by reporting the
company that's breaking the law you raise red flags against
that company. If enough people report a particular
company, the FTC will investigate it and sanction it if it's
broken the law.
In my view, it's better to bring out the Big Gun of
bankruptcy and put all the debts and debt collection scare
tactics behind you than it is to try to sue a creditor over a
violation of the law. It's quicker, cheaper, and more
certain to move you beyond the daily stress of un-manageble
debts.