3 Ways to Stop Collection Calls
Falling behind on your bills usually results in a plethora of collection calls. Initially, these calls tend to be kind customer service reps giving you friendly reminders to pay your bills. But very quickly the customer service representatives can become belligerent and harassing, demanding that you pay your bills or else threatening legal action if you don’t.
Here are 3 ways to Stop Collection Calls
Ask the collection agency representative to provide his/her identity and their agency’s address. Send a letter to the collection agency telling them to stop calling. It is illegal for a collection agency to call you either at home or work once you give them written notice to stop.
Recording the phone conversation can also help you to stop collection calls. Inform the collection agency representative at the beginning of the call that you are taping the call as evidence for filing a formal complaint with the State Attorney General and the Federal Trade Commission.
Setup phone call filtering. Most phone companies offer “anonymous call rejection”. If the calling party is not displaying caller id information, your phone will not ring. Instead the calling party will be confronted by a phone company system that will prompt the caller to leave a very short voice message which is subsequently played to you giving you a chance to accept the call. This will weed out a great many collections calls.
Know Your Rights:
- Even if you owe a debt, a collector cannot use abusive language. Under FDCPA law, a collector is not allowed to make any kind of threat or use abusive language. Violating this law opens the collection agency to fines from the FTC and a law suit from you.
- Debt collectors cannot call you before 8:00 a.m. or after 9:00 p.m.
- State and Federal laws do not allow debt collectors to talk about your debt to anyone without your permission. Debt collectors are also prohibited from contacting you while you are at work.