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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) regulates the offering and provision of consumer financial products or services under the federal consumer financial laws and educates and empowers consumers to make better informed financial decisions.  Below is a link to their website and we encourage you to take a look. 

The information below can be found on the CFPB website. If you do not find the answer you need, please visit their website at https://www.consumerfinance.gov .  The informative website will help you with all your questions about financial laws, regulations, and information on improving personal finances.  

1. What is a debt collector?  Why did they call me?

Under the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, in general, a debt collector is a person or a company that regularly collects debts owed to others, usually when those debts are past-due.  

Debt collectors include collection agencies or lawyers who collect debts as part of their business. There are also companies that buy past-due debts from creditors or other businesses and then try to collect them. These debt collectors are also called debt collection agencies, debt collection companies, or debt buyers.

A debt collector may be trying to contact you because:

• A creditor believes you are past due on a debt. Creditors may use their own in-house debt collectors or may refer or sell your debt to an outside debt collector.
  
• A debt collector also may be calling you to locate someone you know, as long as the collector does not reveal that they are collecting a debt.
  
• A debt buyer has bought the debt and is now collecting that debt or is hiring collectors.
  

If the debt collector is contacting you for payment on a debt and you have concerns about the debt,  the amount they are claiming, or the company contacting you, you might want to speak to an attorney or a credit counseling organization. Before speaking with a debt collector, consider working on your own plan to offer them.  You might be able to set up a payment plan or negotiate with them to resolve the debt.

2. Are there any restrictions on debt collectors when attempting to collect a debt?

Time and place. Generally, debt collectors may not contact you at an unusual time or place, or at a time or place they know is inconvenient to you, and they are  prohibited from contacting you before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. Also if a debt collector knows that you're not allowed to receive the debt collector’s communications at work, then the debt collector is not allowed to contact you there.

• Harassment. Debt collectors may not harass you or anyone else, over the phone or through any other form of contact.
• Representation by attorney. If a debt collector knows that an attorney is representing you about the debt, the debt collector generally must stop contacting you, and must contact the attorney instead. This is only true if the debt collector knows, or can easily find out, the name and contact information of your attorney. If an attorney is representing you and a debt collector calls, tell them which attorney is representing you and that the debt collector should contact the attorney, not you.

3. Can I stop the collection calls? 

If you tell a debt collector in writing to stop contacting you, the debt collector can't contact you again except to:

• Say there will be no further contact
• Notify you that the debt collector or the creditor may take certain specific action it is legally allowed to take, such as a lawsuit against you

          IMPORTANT Warning:  Telling a debt collector to stop contacting you does not prevent the debt collector from pursuing other legal ways to collect the debt from you if you owe it, including a lawsuit against you or reporting negative information to a credit reporting company.  

4. What information should be provided to me about the debt by a debt collector? 

Any debt collector who contacts you claiming you owe payment on a debt is required by law to tell you certain information about the debt. That information includes:

• The name of the creditor
• The amount owed
• That you can dispute the debt
• That you can request the name and address of the original creditor, if different from the current creditor

If the debt collector doesn’t provide this information when they first contact you, they are required to send you a written notice including that information within five days of the initial contact.

5. What if I feel I do not owe the debt? 

You can dispute all or part of the debt. You can also ask for more information if you are unsure you owe money to a creditor, or how much you might owe. If you dispute all or part of a debt in writing within 30 days of when you receive the required information from the debt collector, the debt collector cannot call or contact you to collect the debt or the disputed part until the debt collector has provided the verification of the debt in writing to you.  

You can also request that the creditor give you the name and address of the original creditor. If you make that request in writing within 30 days, the debt collector has to stop all debt collection activities until the debt collector provides you that information. If you don’t recognize the name of the creditor, ask if it might have purchased the debt from another company and, if so, what the name of that company is.

When you get the requested information or the response to your dispute from the debt collector, see if your own records agree with the information the debt collector provide.

For more answers to basic debt collection practices, please visit the CFPB Website, https://www.consumerfinance.gov/consumer-tools/debt-collection/answers/basics/.