Debt and law – Importance of the FDCPA law
The importance of Fair Debt Collections Practices Act or FDCPA law lies in the fact that it saves you from been harassed by the debt collectors. The FDCPA makes it easier for you to pay off the debts and become debt free. It is difficult to handle the collection agencies and so when your debts are sent to a collection agency it becomes really difficult to manage the debts. Thus, it is much better to get debt management help before the debts goes over to the collections.
Fair Debt Collections Practices Act
If your debts get handed over to a collection agency, it is important or you to know the rules set by the FDCPA:
- FDCPA restricts the debt collectors from contacting others or a third party who is in no way related with your debt. A third party may include your relatives, neighbors or your employer. However, if there is any co-applicant, the collection agency can contact that person for the debt collections purpose.
- FDCPA doesn’t even allow debt collectors to threaten you or plan to:
- Ruin your credit rating
- Refer your account to attorneys
- Garnish or repossess
- Extract money from your bank account through false threats
- Collection agencies cannot call you during odd hours. The debt collectors are allowed to call you only between 8.00AM to 9.00 PM. They aren’t allowed to call you at your workplace.
- Debt collectors are not even allowed to inform the employer about the purpose of the call without being asked for it by the employer.
- The debt collectors are prohibited from using abusive languages over the phone.
- The debt collectors are not allowed to send letters to you that appear to come from Court.
- The collectors cannot charge extra interest rates or fees which have not been agreed upon in the original contract with the creditor.
- They cannot request you for post dated checks with wrong intentions.
- The collectors are not allowed to file lawsuit against you in the court which is located far away from your place of living.
- The FDCPA doesn’t even allow the debt collectors to make any kind of false claims for example the collector is representing an Attorney. The collectors can neither use any stationery that appears to have come from a government or which appears to be an official court communication.
- The FDCPA states that debt collectors cannot collect information about the debtor posing as an official conducting survey.
- Debt collectors cannot falsely threat the debtor to get him or her arrested for failure to pay off the debt.
So, you can see that it is important for you to know the FDCPA in details and if you find that a debt collector has broken any of the rules, you can file complaints with both the FDCPA and the State’s Attorney General.