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There's No Place To Hide
By Lucy Lazarony - Reprinted from BankRate.com with permission.
(Page 2 of 3)
It may not even matter that it's not your bill.
"Many times the abuse continues anyway, even though it's not that person's bill," Fons says. "They just expect people are lying to them and that's how they treat people."
Not only is this kind of harassment rude and uncalled for, it's illegal.
Know the rules
The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act was passed in 1977 to protect consumers from abusive debt collectors. There's a whole list of rules third-party debt collectors must follow when collecting a debt.
All those brutal insults and threats aren't supposed to happen. But unfortunately for consumers, some debt collectors violate the law on a regular basis.
They'll threaten to garnish your wages or take away your car or home when they have no right or intent to do so. They'll threaten to press criminal charges.
"They threaten to get the police involved as if not paying a civil debt is a criminal matter," Fons says.
A dirty debt collector will call you at all hours of the day. They'll threaten to tell an employer or spouse or relative about your debt. They'll call you at work after you told them not to contact you while you're working.
"Even if they told you not to call them at work, how do you prove they told you?" Flannagan says. "You bend the rules when they can't prove it."
They'll call your employer several times in a single day to frustrate and embarrass you.
"I had one case where they placed 16 phone calls in 10 minutes to a lady at work," says Jerry Jarzombek, a consumer attorney in Fort Worth, Texas.
A debt collector could even inflate the amount you owe. How much could a debt collector up your bill? One family bounced a $12 check to Papa John's. A debt collector demanded $140.
"It's just rampant profiteering," says Rob Treinen, a consumer attorney in Albuquerque, N.M. "They tried to collect a lot more than allowed by law, more than 10 times the amount."
Why do some debt collectors violate the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act so often? Because they know they can get away with it.
"The odds are very small that you're going to get caught," Flannagan says.
Few consumers are aware of their rights, so they take whatever abuse a debt collector decides to dish out.
"They don't know better," Flannagan says.
And many consumers feel so stressed out and demoralized that they keep right on taking the abuse.
"They think 'I didn't pay my bills so I deserve to be treated this awful way,' '' Fons says. "They don't know they can get help."
What about the law...?
Continued
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