What Debt Collectors Can’t Do to Recover Your Debts

Getting Out of Debt For Dummies

Knowing what debt collectors cannot do to collect a debt from you may help you deal with and protect you from their approaches to debt collection.

The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) is the federal law that governs debt collection for personal, household, and family debts like your mortgage and car loan, other personal loans, your credit card debts, past-due utility bills, past-due student loans, medical and insurance debts, condo fees, unpaid legal judgments against you, and bounced checks. The FDCPA applies to outside debt collectors, but not to a creditor’s own in-house debt collectors (meaning debt collectors who are employees of a creditor).

If your state has its own law that applies to debt collectors, it may be tougher and more comprehensive than the federal law. Contact your state attorney general’s office to find out if your state has a law and about the protections it provides you.

Debt collectors who are covered by the FDCPA cannot do any of the following to collect a debt from you:

Call you before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. unless you tell them it is okay to do so. In fact, you don’t have to talk to debt collectors at all. The FDCPA entitles you to tell debt collectors not to call you again
Call you on a Sunday.
Contact you at work if the debt collector knows that your employer does not want you to be contacted there during working hours.
Get in touch with your employer about a debt you owe, unless the debt is past-due child support.
Contact your relatives, friends, or neighbors about the money you owe in order to embarrass you into paying your debts. Debt collectors can contact these people to obtain information about how to contact you, such as your address or phone number, but they are not permitted to say why they want that information.
Communicate with you about your debt by using a postcard or an envelope that clearly indicates that a debt collector sent it.
Use a letter or envelope that appears to have come from a government agency or a court.
Call you repeatedly during a relatively short period of time. Such behavior is harassment, and the FDCPA makes harassment illegal.
Swear or insult you when you are having a conversation, or threaten you with the loss of your reputation or with jail time.
Order you to accept collect calls from them.
Deposit a post-dated check you have given them before the date on the check.
Collect more than you owe on a debt, unless the contract you have with the creditor that turned your debt over to collections allows the debt collector to do that.

About This Article

About the book author:

John Ventura: John is a best-selling author and a nationally boardcertified bankruptcy attorney. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Houston Law School and the director of the Texas Consumer Complaint Center at the Law School.
As a young boy, John dreamed of becoming a Catholic priest so he could help everyday people, and he spent his high school years in a Catholic seminary. After graduating, however, John decided to achieve his dream by combining journalism with the law. Therefore, he earned an undergraduate degree in journalism and a law degree from the University of Houston Law School. Later, he and a partner established a law firm in Texas, building it into one of the most successful consumer bankruptcy firms in the state. He subsequently began a successful consumer law firm in South Texas.
Today, as Director of the Texas Consumer Complaint Center, he supervises law students as they help consumers with their legal problems. He is also a regular speaker at law conferences around the country and serves on the Bankruptcy Council for the Texas Bar Association.
John is the author of 13 books on consumer and small business legal matters, including Law For Dummies, 2nd edition; The Everyday Law Kit For Dummies; Divorce For Dummies, 2nd edition; and Good Advice for a Bad Economy (Berkeley Books). John has been interviewed about consumer money matters by numerous national media including CNN, NBC, NPR, Bloomberg Television & Radio, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Newsweek, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, Money, Inc. Martha Stewart’s Living, Bottomline, Entrepreneur, Bankrate.com, CBSMarketWatch.com, and MSNMoney.com. In addition, his comments and advice have appeared in major newspapers around the country, and he has been a frequent guest on local radio programs.

Mary Reed: Mary Reed is a personal finance writer who has coauthored or ghostwritten numerous books on topics related to consumer money matters and legal rights. The books she has coauthored with John Ventura include The Everyday Law Kit for Dummies, Divorce For Dummies, and Good Advice for a Bad Economy (Berkeley Books). Mary has also written for the magazines Good Housekeeping, Home Office Computing, and Small Business Computing, and she has ghostwritten numerous articles that have appeared in national and local publications.
Mary is also the owner of Mary Reed Public Relations (MR•PR), an Austin, Texas-based firm that provides public relations services to a wide variety of clients, including authors, publishers, attorneys, financial planners, healthcare professionals, retailers, hotels, restaurants, and nonprofits.
Prior to starting her public relations business and writing career 20 years ago, she was vice president of marketing for a national market research firm, marketing director for a women’s healthcare organization, and public relations manager for Texas Monthly, a national award-winning magazine. She received her MBA from Boston University and her BA from Trinity University in Washington, DC.
In her free time, Mary serves on the board of a community development corporation in her neighborhood. She also enjoys long morning bike rides, road trips with her husband, gardening, working her way through the stack of books by her bed, taking care of her six cats, and spending time with her family and many friends.