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What is the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act?

The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act is a federal law. It applies to everyone in the country and it protects people from third party debt collectors. When someone has a debt from an original creditor, like a car loan, a credit card, a mortgage, medical bills, and if it’s uncollectable, they then hire a third party debt collector to collect that debt.

The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act is a laundry list of what collection agencies can and cannot do while collecting a debt. For example, they cannot call you at work if you tell them you’re not allowed to get calls at work. They cannot disclose your death to third parties such as family or friends. When they leave you voicemail messages or when they talk to you on the phone, they have to provide you certain disclosures. Under the law, if a third party debt collector violates the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the consumer’s entitled to up to a thousand dollars of statutory damages, and the attorney’s fees and costs are paid by the collection agency. What that means is there’s a fee shift provision. My fees and costs gets shifted to the other side.

We have helped thousands of people with debt collection harassment cases under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act only applies to consumer debt or personal debt. For example, credit cards, medical bills, student loans, mortgages. It does not apply to business debt. It also does not apply to taxes or parking tickets or other types of debt that aren’t consumer personal debt.

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