How to make creditors stop harassing you
Say you are at home with your family, about to sit down to dinner. The phone rings, and you already know who it is on the other end. You don’t want to answer it, and the caller ID confirms your suspicions. It’s a number you don’t recognize, but you know it’s a collection agency again. How annoying.
Don’t you wish the harassment would stop? It’s embarrassing and stressful. Isn’t there anything you can do to make it stop? What are your rights here? Can they really call you at work?
There are actually several things you can do to stop creditors from harassing you. You should act quickly - first time you receive a harassing phone call from a creditor, send the creditor a letter by certified mail to make sure they receive it. This is known as a “Do Not Call” letter. In it, you will ask that they no longer harass you with phone calls and tell them how to properly contact you
Call the company that you owe the debt to as soon as you know you will not be able to make your payment on time. Explain your situation to them and ask if you can make a payment arrangement that is mutually agreeable. This will show the creditor that you are sincere about paying your debts and you want to work something out.
Keep a notebook next to your phone and log every time a creditor calls. Mark the date and time of the call, the debt in question, the callers name and the creditor they represent. If it is legal in your state, record your conversations with the creditor. If you don’t record the call, tell them you are. This may “scare” them into changing their personality and may stop future calls.
You do have some protection under federal law. A creditor can’t call you after 9 pm or before 8 am. After you send them a “Do Not Call” letter, they may only call you once more after that to acknowledge that they will cease calling you. Most importantly, they cannot, by law, call you at work, period
Creditors also may not threaten or harass your children, threaten to take action which is beyond the few actions which are legally available to them (more on this in a minute), or talk to anybody not involved with the debt about the matter. They cannot put you in prison (or threaten to) and cannot confiscate property or garnish wages, unless said property was put up as collateral for a loan.
What creditors CAN do are these three things: They can refuse your business in the future, they can sue you for what you owe (though this is unlikely as will almost certainly cost more than you owe to sue you) or they can report your non-payment to a credit reporting bureau
You don’t have to let them harass and bully you. You have rights by federal and state laws. You can stop the harassment if you are being harassed by a creditor. Don’t let them treat you like a criminal or as someone unworthy of respect just because of a debt which you want to pay.