How to Prosecute Fair Debt Violations
During tough economic times, debt collectors are generally more aggressive than ever in their efforts to collect debt from consumers. However, many debt collectors violate consumers' rights under the Fair Debt Collection Act. There are various options available to consumers to curtail illegal practices while putting others on notice of the specific companies that repeatedly violate the Fair Debt Collections Act.
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Things You'll Need
- Written communications from debt collector
- Documentation of conversations with debt collectors
- Voicemail messages from debt collectors
- Documentation of conversations between other household members, friends and family with your debt collectors
Instructions
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Enforcement Agencies
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If you have a complaint, contact your state attorney general's office. This is the best place to begin because the attorney general's office will be able to direct you as to whether state laws govern collection procedures. The attorney general's office can also inform you of any applicable federal collection regulations.
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Contact the Federal Trade Commission and file a complaint there. While the FTC does not handle the matters firsthand, it keeps track of all similar complaints, and functions as a watchdog for any illegal patterns and trends of a particular business. Once a trend is established, the FTC steps in to prosecute that business. Contact the FTC at Consumer Response Center, 600 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W., Washington, DC 20580
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In addition to contacting the state attorney general and FTC offices, the next course of action is to file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. The Better Business Bureau keeps a record of each time a business violates the Fair Debt Collections Act, and any complaints filed because of such violations.
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Finally, consumers can file a complaint in federal or state court for up to $1,000. Under federal law, individuals and classes of individuals are permitted to sue collection agencies for illegal collection tactics. Strict guidelines apply, such as restricting legal action to acts committed within a year of the purported violation. Moreover, in the event you are successful in your complaint, you are only permitted to collect the amount that you were damaged and up to $1,000 more in penalties.
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Tips & Warnings
When consumers surrender to the pressures of debt collectors, they allow these illegal practices to continue. Collectors who routinely violate the Fair Debt Collection laws frequently use tactics that attempt to harass consumers until they pay. Many of these collectors cannot even validate the debts that they attempt to collect from you. Therefore it is worthwhile to be proactive in prosecuting these illegal tactics.
Debt collectors, as a whole, are not threatened by consumers attempts to take them on because they know that there are limits as to what consumers can receive in damages. Moreover, in these cases it is often difficult to prove that your rights were compromised because the burden of proof falls upon the consumer.
Nevertheless, with agencies like the FTC, state attorney general's office and even the Better Business Bureau, the No. 1 source of information about illegal collection tactics is through consumer informants. Without consumer complaints, illegal collection tactics will continue.
