Debt is now a normal characteristic of an Americans' daily life. Millions of Americans use credit cards or have loaned money to pay for a car and many others are home owners with mortgages. Unfortunately, many people cannot afford everything they buy and sometimes loose everything. It is important to know what your rights are when a debt collector calls when you are having financial problems.
Some years ago, these rights were very few certainly and debtors liberally engaged in several types of offensive compilation practices in order to acquire refunds. They normally called people late at night or very early in the morning, left awkward messages at work and menaced to damage your credit score.
As an effort to stop abusive practices like the mentioned above, the Congress created the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) in the seventies. This applies for the virtue of the original debt whether or not it is really due is unrelated. In the FDCPA there are a lot of regulations for debt collectors about the things they can do and cannot do. Some of them are that they cannot call you at inopportune times or places, they can not use vulgar words, they can not call you many times in one day, they can not use a false name, they can not write to you by postcards, among other things.
If you or someone you know is suffering or has suffered persecution by the debt collectors, you may contact your lawyer and ask him/her about the possibilities you have for a claim.