How to Fight an unfair debt collection?

In these questionable economic times, debts are mounting, unemployment is rising and creditors are turning more and more to debt collection agencies to get their investments back. So what if you find yourself in a situation that involves an unfair debt collection? How can you fight it? What do you do?

First, you have to understand that you DO have rights. The Fair Credit Collections Act exists to protect you and lays out some common sense and respectful ground rules for the collections agencies and attorneys. These guidelines only pertain to collections agencies and attorneys. The ground rules for contact include phone, mail or personal visit in rare cases between the hours of 8 AM and 9 PM in their time zones. If they receive a written notification that is unacceptable, they must cease contact of family or friends of the debtor, or at the debtor's workplace. It is illegal for the debt collection agencies or attorneys to deceive debtors, to threaten impossible legal action or illegal action or to reveal debt information to outside sources.

Second, the Fair Collections Practices Act also includes an area of protection if you feel the debt is unwarranted. You must ask the agency to supply you proof, in writing, that you are liable for the debt. If it cannot be proven, they may not continue collections out of court.

Unless you have been sued and a judgment has been made for your creditor, your wages cannot be garnished nor your property seized. If you believe a creditor's actions are considered harassment, you should report it and contact an attorney.

While your unfair debt collection situation should have ended, it should be noted that the debt collector has the right to file the lack of payment against your credit report. While there are response fields supplied by the credit reporting agencies for your personal update on the situation, few other credit companies will view your updates and your credit status will be lowered due to the lack of payment reported. If the situation has been resolved and the credit report has not been updated, you can contact all of the credit reporting agencies and they will get confirmation from the debt collection company. This usually resolves the issue, however, it if doesn't you will need to contact an attorney. It should also be noted that each time a credit reporting company confirms the outstanding debt status with the company in question, any update from that company is considered an update in the actual reporting date. Continual communication can therefore keep the lack of payment on your credit report for a longer period of time than the original reporting date. In the case of a debt collection dispute that is resolved by both parties agreeing to a mutual settlement that is less than the original debt, the unpaid amount can still be filed as unpaid or written off as a loss on your credit report, even though it was mutually agreed upon.

Many of the former modes of communication required written correspondence to credit reporting agencies. Today much of the communication is done in secure electronic format on-line. This can considerably speed of the process.

The information supplied in this article is not to be considered as medical advice and is for educational purposes only.