Fair Debt Collection Act

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Fair Debt Collection Act
1
Sun, 04-17-2005 - 7:53am

I am taking a course on the Fundamentals of Personal Financial Planning. If all goes well with my debt reduction and savings plans, I should be able to retire early and I think Financial Planning would make a cool retirement career.
Anyway, I just read the chapters on budgeting and debt -- things I have a lot of experience with. They had a setion on the Fair Debt Collection Act which I thought some of you might be interested in:

Creditors are required to notify customers in writing within five days of the first contact by a collector of the amount owed, to whom, and how to dispute the claim. The collector must cease collection efforts until sending the customer written verification of the debt.

The customer can prevent a collector form communicating with him/her by notifying the collector in writing.

Collectors are NOT permitted to:
1.Use abusive language, threaten the customer, or call at inconvenient times or at the place of work
2.Misrepresent themselves
3.Use unfair tactics in an effort to collect the debt
4.Contact anyone else about the customer’s debt unless they are trying to locate him/her
5.Collect an amount greater than the debt payments or apply payments to another disputed debt

I hope this is helpful to someone. It seems the best thing to do is to contact the creditor or collection agency right away, in writing, so they can't harrass you. I think they bet on people not knowing their rights.

Sandra

Avatar for cl_phocid
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sun, 04-17-2005 - 8:14am
Thanks Sandra - this is helpful information.

All my best,
Danni