Attorney: Debt Collection Harassment Laws Protect Consumers from Undue Harassment

Miami, FLConsumers who have been victims of threatening debt collection practices may want to consider calling a lawyer to deal with debt collector harassment. Even in cases where consumers owe money - and not all debt collection harassment involves creditors who are rightfully owed - there are certain actions debt collectors can and cannot take in contacting debtors, and those actions are guided by state and federal law.

The three pieces of federal legislation that govern debt collection practices are the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Together, these laws set out when and how debt collectors can contact debtors and what actions debt collectors can take against debtors.

“Often states have statutes that are more restrictive than federal statutes,” says Attorney Ben Stewart, of Stewart Law Group PLLC. “But these three pieces of federal legislation protect debtors from intrusive collection practices. They protect consumers from undue harassment and from creditors filing frivolous or baseless bad credit indicators, which lower people’s credit scores."

Among debt collection practices that are regulated by federal regulations are calls from telephones to cell phones, calling at certain times of day, repeated or threatening calls and calls to non-debtors (such as the debtor’s family or colleagues). According to Stewart, debt collectors who violate these regulations face statutory fines that range from $500 to $1,000 per occurrence. Furthermore, under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, consumers whose credit rating has been wrongfully lowered may recover based on the number of points their credit was lowered. They may also seek injunctive relief to raise their credit score back to where it should have been if not for the negligent reporting.

Having a frivolous, bad credit indicator can cause trouble for a debtor by pushing the credit rating down, affecting his or her ability to obtain credit or loans.

“I currently represent a police officer, who lived in an apartment community while saving to buy his first home,” Stewart says. “He saved enough and found a house to buy, so he went to the apartment manager and told them he was terminating his lease early. They entered a contract to terminate the lease and he paid the fee for ending the lease prematurely. On the same day he moved, they inspected his apartment and signed a form that the apartment was in good shape and he should receive his full deposit back. Sixty days later, he received a notice from a collection agency, which was hired to recover $437 for his apartment community because they claimed he failed to pay for damage to his apartment. The community told him the apartment sat unrented for 30 days and when they went in, it smelled of pet urine. He told the apartment community he didn’t have a pet and, because they signed a form saying he should receive his full deposit back, he was reported wrongfully. The apartment community refused to cancel the debt and referred him to a credit reporting agency, where his rating was lowered by 10 points in a month."

There are federal statutes designed to protect consumers from harassing or threatening behavior on the part of debt collectors, but it is up to individual consumers to invoke their rights.