Consumer Rights And Debt Collection

And one thing is very important to point out whenever a consumer chooses to communicate with a collection agency in writing. It's my advice to always send all communications through certified mail, with return receipt requested. Keep copies of the communications and then the consumers will get a green, what we call the green card back, the postcard showing receipt. So that's the most important right a lot of consumers have. Then aside from that, there's a long laundry list of things. I'll just go over some of the very basic things that we see in our practice. Generally speaking a consumer has a right not to be spoken to in a manner that utilizes obscene or a profane language or language which results in the natural consequence to abuse the consumer. Now as you can imagine that's a case by case analysis. And much of the time a jury or a judge has to decide whether such language is abusive. And I would use the phrase that generally the consumers are entitled to be treated with respect. The law does not use that phrase but if you look at the FDCPA, the Federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, that's kind of the result of the improper use of language requirement. So, that's one thing. Secondly, something we see fairly often is a consumer being harassed at his or her workplace. After the consumer has notified the debt collector that either it's an inconvenient place for the consumer to be contacted or that the consumer's employer prohibits such calls. Unfortunately, it's a frequent occurrence whereby a consumer's supervisor and/or coworkers will be contacted regarding collection attempts. We just see it again at workplace harassment and consumers have the right again not to be contacted at work in one or two situations when first when the consumer has notified the debt collector that's an inconvenient place to be contacted or secondly when the consumer has notified the debt collector that the consumer's employer prohibits such calls. Third area that we see, we don't see it that often is the placement of calls at inconvenient times. The FDCPA and I'll continue to use that term I'm referring to the Federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act has a presumption that if a consumer is contacted before 8:00 a.m. or after 9:00 p.m. in an attempt to collect the debt, there's a presumption that that's an inconvenient time. I think there might be exceptions but that's kind of the general rule. Another very large area of violations that we see is threats of arrest. This country did away with long ago, debtors' prisons.

One generally cannot be thrown in jail for failure to pay a credit card debt or failure to pay someone's car loan or failure to pay their home loan. Yet collectors, debt collectors much of the time will call up and pretend to be police officers, pretend to work for a sheriff's department, pretend to be with the government and tell a consumer that the debt collector is a detective. Unless the consumer gives bank account information over the phone, then the consumer will be arrested that afternoon. The consumer cannot be arrested and jailed for failure to pay a consumer debt. Another big area, and this will only apply in a limited number of states including Texas, is a threat of wage garnishment. In Texas, the consumer's wages cannot be garnished for failure to pay consumer debt with few exceptions. One of the big exceptions is government bank, student loans that can result in wage garnishment. So, wage garnishment is something we see and wage garnishment is really a subset of a larger prohibition. A debt collector generally cannot use deceptive practices when attempting to collect the debt. In other words, they can't lie to a consumer. They can't tell a consumer that a consumer is going to jail or the consumer's wages will be garnished or prohibited by law or that a consumer is liable for a debt that the consumer is not liable for or any other sundry list of things. And we hear a new one it seems every week in my office.