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There are many people across the nation that are deeply in debt and many of these individuals have had to deal with a debt collection agency at some point in the last several years.  The debt collection industry has repeated come under fire in recent years for aggressive debt collection practices and many individuals are aware that they can report aggressive collection agents and agencies to the Better Business Bureau to document the harassing actions.  What many individuals do not know is that the Federal Trade Commission of the United States Government has passed a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act that specifically details the rights of the individuals being contacted by the debt collection agency and lists the actions that debt collectors are not allowed to take.

1.  You Can Stop The Collector From Contacting You
Many individuals being contacted repeatedly by aggressive debt collection agents do not know that they can legally have the harassing phone calls stopped by submitting a request in writing that the collection agency stop contacting them.  Once the request has been received by the debt collection agency, they cannot contact you for any reason other than to tell you that your letter has been received and they will no longer contact you.  Stopping the collection agency from contacting you does not erase the debt that is owed and the collection agency may decide to sue you in court to recoup the funds that they are owed.

2.  Collection Agencies Are Not Allowed To Contact Debtors After 9pm Or Before 8am.
The hours in which the debt collection agency is allowed to contact you are explicitly spelled out in the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.  Debt collection agencies must adhere to these time constraints unless they receive permission from you to contact you outside of these times.

3.  Debt Collectors Must Send You A Written Notice Describing The Debt.
If a debt collection agent contacts you to tell you that you owe money to the company, within five days of the initial contact, the debt collector must send a written notice describing the debt, listing the amount owed, and disclosing the steps that can be taken by the debtor if they believe that they do not owe the debt. 

4.  Many Aggressive Debt Collection Practices Are Prohibited.
Debt collection agencies and their agents are expressly prohibited from the following:
- Using obscene or profane language when talking to the debtor
- Threatening violence or harm
- Misrepresent who they are by claiming to be an attorney, from the credit bureau, etc.
- State that you will be arrested for not paying the debt
- Collect any amount greater than the debt owed
- Misrepresenting documents sent to you as legal documents when they are not
- Publish the names of individuals that they are attempting to collect a debt from

5. Debt Collectors Cannot Repeatedly Contact You At Work If Your Manager Disapproves.
The actions of the debt collection agency are not allowed to interfere with your employment and this includes calling you at work when your boss disapproves of the contact.  If collection agency repeatedly contacts you at work knowing that it could affect your employment, they could face sanctions from the Federal Trade Commission.

A more complete list and description of debtor’s rights are listed in the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act released by the Federal Trade Commission.  If a consumer has experienced any of the prohibited or harassing tactics listed in the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, they may report the debt collection agency to the Federal Trade Commission or to the Attorney General of their state for investigation.

One of the newest and more questionable practices used by collection agencies today are the use of Collection Triggers to attempt to collect on the debts that they hold.  Never heard of Collection Triggers?  Well, neither have the other thousands of individuals whose personal information is being sold by the credit reporting bureaus to collection agencies across the nation.

What Is “Collection Triggers”?

Sold under the name Collections Triggers by leading credit reporting agency Experian, this software program is designed to take the information about a collection agency’s list of collection accounts and monitor those accounts in Experian’s system for any activity on the account.  Once activity on the account has been detected, the collection agency is notified and any new contact information given to the credit reporting agency is then given to the collections agency.

This allows the collection agency to find you every time something is reported on your credit report as they now have your address, phone number, and the fact that you are paying an account or have opened a new account recently.  Regardless of whether the collection account that the agency has on you is valid or not, for as long as they wish they can access your personal information and can harass you for accounts that you may or may not owe.

Other Issues Arising

“So what?” you may say, “I don’t owe any creditors any money so this does not apply to me.”  Well, you couldn’t be more wrong.  The technology used to create Collection Triggers is already being modified to be applied to other industries. 

For example, if an individual begins the procedure to obtain a mortgage and their credit is pulled to determine whether or not they can afford the mortgage, the credit reporting agency is alerted that you are shopping for a mortgage.  The credit reporting agency then sells your information to competitors of the mortgage company you applied with so that they know that a potential customer is looking for a mortgage.  The result is that the consumer is swamped with phone calls, solicitations, and mailings that offer alternates to the mortgage company that they initially chose.

For some individuals, this competition would be welcome but many others are alarmed that their personal information would be sold to companies without their consent.  There are no conditions put into place to ensure that only reputable companies are able to obtain consumers personal information and the threat of identity theft or being signed up for programs that you did not agree to is high. 

When a company misuses a consumer’s information, which can cost the consumer a great deal of money, the burden of proving that the information was misused is on the consumer.  Even if the consumer wins their case, they still may be on the hook for hundred of dollars in charges, have negative information reported on their credit report, and there is no guarantee that the issue will not occur again if their information is sold to another company.  There is currently no way for a consumer to opt out of the system and in reality, your information has probably already been sold to any company that was willing to pay for it.

When it comes to dealing with some parts of the debt collection industry (the mortgages section is a bit of an exception), it can often be much more akin to dealing with a scummy neighbor rather than an actual professional business. A portion of the debt collection industry will do whatever they can, regardless of how immoral it may be, to get the money they think they are owed. They will call children when their parents aren’t home and tell the children that their parents will go to jail if they don’t pay their debts. They will call several times a day and disrupt your life as much as possible. They’ll call your neighbors and tell them that you’re a deadbeat. They’ll even try to get your family members to pay on the debt. This industry is out of control. Some debt collection agencies are now trying to collect upon debts that are past the statute of limitations and breaking the law to do so, fortunately you can fight back.According to federal law, you have no legal obligation to pay any debt that has had no activity in the last 7 years. If you had some bad credit card debt in college a decade, you legally don’t have to pay it. There’s still a moral obligation to be a good citizen and make good for the debt that you have, but you’re not bound to pay it according to the law.
If you borrowed money in January of 2001, it’s very likely that in December of 2007, just before the statute of limitations expires on your debt, you’ll start receiving calls from debt collection agencies trying to get money out of you. It’s very likely that they illegally changed the date on the debt. They will claim hat there is some sort of activity on your account making it active again, resetting that 7 year expiration clock and continue to try to collect the debt even though the statute of limitation on collecting that debt has expired.

Collection agencies are increasingly changing the date on debts, even though no activity has occurred. According to the Federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, this practice is illegal. If a debt collection agency does this to you, you can sue them in small claims court at your local courthouse, and they’ll have to come and defend themselves. You’ll likely be able to get that debt removed from your credit report once and for all and potentially receive some sort of punitive damages.

If a debt collector tries to collect a debt that’s past the statute of limitations, you have no obligation to pay it. They will probably illegally change the date of the debt and try to collect it, but you don’t legally have to pay it, and you can fight back.