Skip to content

Debtors Rights–Stop harassing Calls

Michael Agruss

Written and Reviewed by Michael Agruss

  • Managing Partner and Personal Injury Lawyer at Mike Agruss Law.
  • Over 20 years of experience in Personal Injury.
  • Over 8000+ consumer rights cases settled.
  • Graduated from the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law: Juris Doctor, 2004.

Debt collection agencies are extremely aggressive, and purposefully so.  They send threatening letters and e-mails to debtors and make harassing phone calls, often promising legal action or imprisonment.  These actions are calculated; they want debtors to feel powerless, to make people bend to their will.  Some debt collectors have been caught stalking people via social media, others continue to hound people around forgiven debts.  But, luckily, public awareness and judicial action have begun to change, and debt collection agencies are beginning to be held accountable for illegal practices.

In the last ten years, the number of federal lawsuits filed by debtors against collection agencies has risen dramatically.  The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act was passed in 1991, but its details remained largely unknown to consumers until recently.  In the last decade, debt collectors have upped their abusive practices in the wake of billions of dollars of floating debt, much of which was created after the housing bubble.  Debtors have become more knowledge on the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act with the help of attorneys, and with more media exposure around aggressive and illegal activities.

In court, collection agencies usually have high victory rates when pursuing unpaid debts; that is, if they’ve stayed inside the law.  Under the Fair Debt Collection Practices act, debt collectors are not allowed to call between eight in the evening and eight in the morning; they’re not permitted to call any third parties asking for information (except to get an address, phone number, or work location); they cannot harass people at work if they’ve asked them not to; and, debt collectors are not allowed to threaten anyone with jail time, litigation, garnished wages, or physical harm (the first two may be legally permissible, depending on the nature of the debt)—this last piece is called abusive collection tactics.

When dealing with a debt collection agency, it’s extremely helpful to engage an attorney; a qualified lawyer will deal with the agency directly, and keep them from contacting you.  A good attorney can also reduce the overall debt amount, as well as your monthly payments.  When debt collectors with solid documentation and a paper trail go to court, it’s very hard for a borrower to fight the debt and win.  But, collection companies are not infallible; sometimes they file a large number of suits against debtors, with minimal details, and fail to follow the proper channels on paper (abusive tactics aside).

This kind of behavior, especially when repeated and widespread, is what consumer rights attorneys are acting on in courts across the country.  Sometimes a judge will even require the collection agency to pay for plaintiff’s attorneys’ fees, beyond a damage award (and the dismissal of the debt).

If you are being constantly and illegally contacted by one or more debt collection agencies, make sure you document every encounter (and record calls with the company, if possible), and then get in touch with a qualified attorney.   Debt collectors aren’t going to leave you alone until you take legal action against them, and even then they are a tedious group.  Contact Mike Agruss Law, at 888-572-0176 for a free consultation.  The firm’s founding attorney, Michael Agruss, has settled over 1,500 debt collection harassment cases.  Now, we want to help you, too

Submitted Comments

No Comments submitted yet. Sharing your story will help others!

We are listening

We will respond to you at lightning speed. All of your information will be kept confidential.

Form successfully submitted!