Know Your Rights When It Comes to Bill Collectors

I am a big believer in that consumers must take responsibility for their actions. In other words, I find it hard to feel sorry for someone that filled his or her credit card up with purchases that were foolishly made. In my opinion, if you put yourself in that kind of debt, you shouldn’t be able to just shirk it off and expect to walk away from it. At the same time, I know that there are people out there that got placed in a terrible financial situation for reasons that were not their doing. An unexpected job loss, a divorce, a death or medical bills can all make it difficult to make bill payments on time. It’s for these types of situations that bankruptcy laws were established. It’s also for these reasons that there are laws in place to protect your rights from bill collectors that lie, threaten, and use intimidation to try to collect on that debt

If you find yourself in one of these terrible situations, it is important for you to be aware of your rights when it comes to bill collectors and their practices. That way, you can deal with your debts in the best way possible.

One thing to know is that credit card companies cannot repossess your automobile or other possessions in order to collect on the debt. Credit card debt is unsecured debt, which means you don’t “owe” any of your property to the credit card company or to its representatives if you fail to pay the money back.

Despite the fact that credit card companies cannot repossess your goods, many collectors will lie and claim that this is exactly what they will do. Their hope is that this will scare you into coughing up the cash. The reality is that telling this lie is in violation of what is know as the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and you can actually file a claim against the collection agency.

You should also check into the statute of limitations on debt in your state. In Michigan, for example, collection agencies cannot pursue a debt that is more than six years old. The only exception to this would be if a judgment was placed against you by a judge, in which case the judge may order that you turn over one of your assets in order to satisfy your debt. Until this happens, however, tell the company to quit calling or they will be answering to your lawyers instead of the other way around.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, April 26th, 2007 at 4:18 pm and is filed under Tips & Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.