Debt Collections: Stop the Phone Calls

There is nothing worse than receiving a phone call from a collections department every twenty minutes throughout the day. You know the feeling when your phone rings, and you know before checking the caller ID who it will be! Many people just stop answering their phone completely, or will go to great lengths to make it difficult for the debt collectors to call them.

Have you ever changed your phone number in order to stop the debt collection calls from coming in? Or maybe you've at least considered it? You don't have to go through all that trouble to stop the calls, though. Under the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act (FDCPA), you can actually just tell the debt collectors to stop calling you all together.

Debt collectors usually prefer to contact you via telephone, because they're pretty much assured they can say whatever they want and know that the chances that the borrowers are recording the call are slim to none. Under the FDCPA, you can insist that all communication take place through the mail, which gives you the added benefit of having everything in writing.

Debt collectors are not allowed to harass people who owe them money. This means they're not supposed to call you thirty times a day, especially after you've talked to them. If they continue to call you, they're in violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. The act also dictates when the collectors are allowed to call. They are allowed to call between 8am and 9pm (your local time, regardless of where the collectors are calling from); and they are allowed to call you at work unless you've specifically mentioned that your employer disapproves of phone calls at work. As for holidays and weekends? The law doesn't have a specific requirement of weekends and holidays but includes a statement that the collectors are not to call when it would be deemed inconvenient- hopefully a holiday would classify as an inconvenient time to call!



The best way to stop the calls is to send them a letter instructing them to stop calling you. You can do this with debt collectors, but not the original lender of the money.

After you've sent the letter requesting communications to stop, (called a “cease and desist” letter, it should include your name and account number, a request to stop communications under your rights with the federal debt collection laws, and a line that states you will pursue criminal and civil claims if they are in violation of your request)the law provides that the collections company can contact you one more time to give you an explanation of their next actions- whether further methods of collecting that particular debt will be stopped, or what further actions the collector plans to take. If they contact you beyond that single instance, you then can go to court and seek punitive action from the collector for violating the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.

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