We all ave had the experience at one time or another of receiving harassing calls from credit card collectors wanting us to pay up immediately. They call during dinner hour, on weekends, in the evening, Sunday mornings and are very good at intimidation techniques.

There is however some protection afforded you from these harassing techniques, originating in the Fair Debt Collection Act, which can be easily found and read on the internet.

However the following will summarize a procedure you can follow which flows from the Act itself to drastically reduce the level of harassment you are experiencing. I did say reduce not eliminate as there will always be unscrupulous collectors willing to break the law in pursuit of coercing a payment out of you.

Please understand you probably owe the debt. You should repay what you owe. However if there are extenuating circumstances preventing such repayment you are not required to submit to harassing telephone calls beyond what is allowed by the statutes and laws of this country.

Here is how to navigate this matter successfully and securely.

When a credit collector calls and you feel you are being harassed, this is what to do:
Get their name and mailing address.  Get their title if they have one, and/or
their collector ID number. They may hang up on you when this is requested so you may have to do this a number of times before you get the information you want. You also may want to immediately ask for a supervisor who may be more willing to comply and give you the information you require.

Then simply say something like:  I prefer to do all my personal business in writing.
Pursuant to the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act, you are hereby notified to cease telephone communications with me at my home or my place of employment.

Then simply hang up the phone! No need to enter into any further discourse and if you wait a second the collector will attempt to move you into a discussion again and again. They are trained well and are very affective.

You will then want to send that specific collector who called you a certified letter with a return signature required, stating the following:

date
collector name

Pursuant to the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act, you are hereby notified to cease telephone communications with me at my home or my place of employment regarding the collections of the alleged debt you are attempting to collect from me.  Do not contact employer.
I will however respond to your written correspondence immediately.

Further contact by you or anyone employed by your company will be construed as harassment, and you and whoever disregards this written notice may be sued to the maximum extent allowed for by the Act, 15 USC 1692.

Print and sign you name and put your telephone number under your name as well.

Save a copy of the letter and of course the return receipt.

If you have the fax number send it by fax as well and save both the fax amd print out a report indicating it was successfully transmitted.

This should reduce the calls dramatically.

Call me if you need help 413-549-2966.