What Debt Collectors Can and Can’t Do
With difficult economic times making people less likely to pay off their debts, this is exactly the kind of situation when companies will be more likely to hire third party debt collectors to hunt down their money. If you have unpaid debts and a debt collection agency gets involved, it’s useful to know what your rights are:
- You are allowed to ask them to verify your debt - that is, to prove that it belongs to you, and until they do so, no other action can be taken
- Debt collectors are only allowed to contact you between eight in the morning and nine at night.
- They are not allowed to ask your employer about any details of your work (including salary or length of service) but they do have the legal right to contact your employer to verify that you work there.
- After a particular period of time has elapsed without being able to contact you (the time varies), then a debt collector is legally permitted to use other methods to try to find you, including internet searches and contacting your neighbors, relatives or friends - however, they are not allowed to disclose anything about your debt to these people.
This entry was posted on Thursday, December 11th, 2008 at 3:20 am and is filed under Debt Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
