How To Deal With Collection Agency Harassment

By Author: Jeff Blampert
Total Articles: 3
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Now-a-days people often take loans and financial aids from various agencies or sources to fulfill their professional as well as personal goals. The organizations or the people who provide financial aids are known as creditors while those who seek the financial help are known as debtors. If the borrower falls behind the payment than the things between debtor and creditor becomes very frustrating. This may cause debtor in trouble as many institutions hire collection agencies to recover their money.

Collection agencies are hired by banks or money lending personnel to retrieve their amount lend to the debtors. There are two forms of collection agencies, namely first party and third party agency. The first party agency is a part of the financial agency or bank that lends money to the debtors whereas third party agency is an external agency hired by the lenders for a limited amount of time. The recovery of money is done by a third party collection agency that indulges into the harassment tactics.

Dealing with the collection agency is a miserable experience. You feel like you can do nothing about ...
... it. However there are federal laws that prevent these agencies from harassing people. These laws come under federal debt collection practices act. The act specifies the duties of the collection agencies that what they can do when attempting to collect a debt.

The .collection agency harassment laws prohibit harassing, threatening and intimidating collection procedures. The State Statute prohibits a collection agent from

1) Threatening to communicate with the current employer before obtaining a judgment against the debtor.

2) Communicating with the family frequently at unusual hours is considered as abusive and harassing.

3) Simulating any judicial or legal process and appearing to be as approved or authorized by the government or an attorney to collect the debt from the debtor is termed as illegal practice.

The collection agent cannot send you a letter without the required notice asking you to pay under the federal law regarding your confidentiality. If he does so then he is automatically liable to you for your damages and he will be asked to pay three times the amount of your damages.

The violation of the State collection agency harassment laws is considered as an offense. If you encounter such thing then you can file charges with the State Attorney General or your County District Attorney. You can also request a restrictive action against the collection agency to stop it from continuing harassment and abuse.

If any point of time you feel like abused or harassed by a collection agency then you should call that agency to get the name and address of the owner or the president. You must send your written complaint via certified mail and return receipt to the owner of the agency. Your letter must include that you believe that the agency is violating the Federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and other laws. So you will file a complaint with district attorney or attorney general subjecting the collection to misbehavior charges. If the company still continues with its actions then you must go ahead and file your complaint with the higher authorities.