Perhaps you are getting call after call from the collection agencies as they inquire you time and time again about why you have not made your payments. You may even feel that you are being harassed, and cannot properly deal with the collection agencies without being barraged with threats and warnings. You want to do something to get them off your back, but what is it exactly that you are allowed to do without breaking the law?

What exactly are your rights when dealing with a collection agency? How do you know whether or not what they are doing to you is wrong, or if there is a law that protects you from some of the harassment they are treating you with? Here are a few things you should know about the law concerning collection agencies, and what instances in which you can rebuke them for not abiding by those rules of law.

1. Calling Hours

Collection agencies cannot call you between seven in the morning and nine at night. If they call anytime before or after these hours, they are breaking the law. If this occurs, call them on it, make a complaint, and make sure that they see that you know the rules and will hold them to those rules.

2. Calling You from Work

If a collection agency calls you at your job, it is only legal if your employer approves. If your employer approves of the calls, then they are not going against the rules to call you during your work hours at your office or job site. If you have a problem with it and would like the phone calls to stop while you are at work, take it up with your employer, because he is the one who holds the power to stop them from calling.

3. Frequent Calls

If collection agencies are calling on a frequent basis, this may be considered harassment. Keep a record of the time and dates on which you are called by collection agencies. If you want to make a formal complaint against a collection agency’s harassment concerning this, you must have these records to give as information to prove that they have been calling too frequently.

4. Same Creditor Calls

Perhaps you may not understand how frequent is too frequent. A collection agency cannot call you more than three times a week on behalf of the same creditor, or lender that you owe the money to. Anytime you get more than three calls a week, all concerning the same credit card debt you hold, you may make a formal complaint against the collection agencies for harassment.

5. Contacting Others

When a collection contacts your neighbors, friends, family, or employers, the only information they are allowed to ask of those people is your telephone number or your mailing address. Any other questions they may ask concerning information about you are against the law, and can be disputed. Your family and friends are not required to give the collections any information, and should not give information to them that was asked about illegally.

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.