Unfortunately, if you have failed to pay your bills on time and have ignored the inquiries of the collection agencies to you to pay the amount you owe and are behind on, you can be sued. However, it is not the collection agency’s responsibility to do so. In fact, a collection agency itself cannot sue you because you do not pay off your debt unless they are a collection law firm. It is the company or the creditor to whom you owe money to that will sue you for not paying them the money that you owe them on time.

Not only are collection agencies prohibited from suing you, but you are NOT prohibited from suing THEM. There are certain circumstances in which you may feel you have been wronged by a collection agency. If you feel this way, that the law has been broken by something that the collection agency has done or said to you, then you can file a formal complaint and take that collection agency to court.

The thing that collection agencies are most commonly sued for is harassment. Harassment is prohibited by the law when collection agencies are trying to reach the person who owes the money. Here are a few examples of harassment that you have the power to sue for if you are under similar circumstances.

Excessive Phone Calls

If a collection agency is calling you several times a week on behalf of the same creditor, or because of the same form of credit to which you are indebted to and have failed to pay on time, they are breaking the law. Collection agencies are not allowed to contact anyone more than three times a week to inquire about the same overdue payment. If something like this occurs, track the date and the time at which you were called each time, and then you will have proof once you make a formal complaint against them in court.

Threats

Some collection agencies threaten the people that they call to attach their wages in order to get the debt paid. This is illegal only if they are only making hollow threats and do not really intend to do so. If they really do take action to legally attach your wages to get the debt paid, then there is no valid reason for you to sue them. Make sure that you have proof that they did not fully intend to do that before you file a complaint, otherwise you will lose.

Make Sure Your Complaint is Valid

When you take a collection agency to court intending to sue them, you must make sure that the complaint you are filing against them is valid enough for you to have a strong case. If you go to court and do not have proof of harassment and a legitimate explanation of exactly what happened, with detail to back your story up, you will not be persuasive enough to win the case. It is up to you to track and monitor how you are being treated by collection agencies, and if you find fault in this treatment, use it as proof against them for their crime.