Fair Debt Collection Practices Act

The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act is an amendment to the Consumer Credit Protection Act. The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act helps consumers deal with collection agencies.

What is the purpose of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act? What does the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act do?

The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act was created to prevent abusive collection practices by third party collectors and to endorse consistent actions by states in order to protect consumers' rights.

In addition to the above, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act was also designed to provent any debt collecting agencies that do not employ abusing collection strategies from being penalized or placed at a competitive disadvantaged to those debt collection agencies that do use them.

Implications of the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act

Debt collectors that are legitimately locating an alleged debtor must comply with the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act rules. For example, under the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act, debt collectors must property identify himself or herself that he or she is the debt collector and advise the party they are communicating with that this is an attempt to verify the address of the alleged debtor. If called for, the debt collector must provide the name of his or her company. The debt collector must not reveal that the consumer being asked about owes a debt.

Communicating with the debt collector under the Fair Debt Collection Practice Act

Under the Fair Debt Collection Practice Act, when communicating with the debt collector, the debt collector must comply with certail guidelines. Section 604 of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act lists the guidelines which the debt collector must comply when communicating with the alleged debtor. Also, unless the debt collector is given permission by the court, the debt collecor may not call a debtor before 8am and after 9pm in the debtor's time zone.