Suffering with debt is already difficult enough without debt collectors making things worse and more stressful.
In most cases, debt collectors abide by the laws set out in the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act (FDCPA). However, some will abuse their position of power and use it to harass people.
Less direct forms of harassment
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau discusses debt collector harassment. This occurs when debt collectors step over their legal allowance and act in a way that causes serious detriment to the person they target.
Harassment may come in different forms. For example, in some cases, the debt collectors choose to harass a person by intimidating them by less direct means. This can include hiring an agent or sending out a member of the debt collection agency to stake out a house, parking off the property and simply “watching” a house all day to intimidate the occupants.
Harassment via nuisance
In other cases, harassment takes the form of annoying and repetitive behavior. The most common example includes a debt collection agency calling a person’s house multiple times a day, often multiple times an hour. They call all throughout the day and night, annoying the victims to no end and disturbing their quality of life.
In some instances, threats are quite severe and obvious. A debt collector may threaten a person with eviction and arrest, or could even threaten them with bodily harm.
When facing these abuses of power by a debt collector, it is important to know that the law will not side with them and that a person can take legal action.