Telephone calls have no legal weight since there is no record of what was said on a call. Knowing this, credit card debt collectors will say threatening things on the phone and get away with telling their lies. That is why consumer debt collectors choose to use the phone over mail. Debt collectors lose their power when communications are reduced to writing.
What matters in court are the written communications, or the lack of them, between a consumer and a credit card debt collector. Mail sent certified return receipt requested further helps the consumer put the debt collector on the defensive.
There is a saying in online consumer forums, 100 percent of debt collectors tell lies 100 percent of the time. Here are some examples of those lies.
1. They scare you by claiming that a lawsuit has been filed against you in your local court and that a complaint is on its way.
2. They threaten to have you arrested. (Debts are civil, not criminal.)
3. They tell you you may be arrested, knowing no one can be arrested for a civil matter.
4. They will tell you may have your wages reduced to pay your debt, and you will get a negative listing on your credit report.
5. They might even threaten you with having your bank account seized.
Each of these lies is punishable with a $1000 fine with the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
These threats are attempts to get you to confirm that the debt is yours. The credit card debt collector wants to confirm the credit card number in question and get other personal information. They want to know your Social Security number, the phone number of your work place and even information about your bank account. The Credit Card Debt Survival Guide says that you should react by disputing the debt and denying it over the phone to the credit card debt collector. Remember that the person on the other end of the line unknown to you. Tell them you do not share personal information over the phone with people unknown to you and then hang up.
Curiosity should be the only reason for taking one of these calls. If a credit card debt collector calls out of the cold, let them tell you what debt they are calling about, then tell them you have received no written notice from them about the debt and hang up.
Fortunately, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act allows you to write to the debt collector instructing them to stop all collection calls. Once this has happened, any calls are subject to a $1000 penalty because they then violate the law. You can keep a log of every call and then contact a consumer rights attorney about suing the debt collector, fee paid on the contingency of winning.
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