Creditor Harassment- Make it Stop!

Times are getting hard. Some people are missing payments. Some have stopped paying all together and an account has gone to a collection agency. Or maybe you are getting phone calls and threatening letters from a “junk debt buyer” who purchased a 20 year old account from your 20’s.

Are they calling day and night? Harassing you at work, even though you’ve told them to stop? Calling relatives and demanding payment? If so, these collections agents are violating the law, and you can stop them. In fact, in many cases, you can collect $1000 for violation PLUS damages! Many people think there is nothing to do.

First things first. The Fair Debt Collections Practices Act. This is the best law in the world. It basically says what collections agents can/can’t do. For instance.

*They can’t call pretending to be a police officer or law enforcement agency. They also can’t threaten to throw you in jail for not paying your bills.
*They can’t talk to other people about your debts. If they so much as mention it, they are violating the law. They can call references to try to get a hold of you, but they can not tell them why they are calling.
*They can not call you once you tell them in writing to stop. If they do, they are breaking the law.
*If you or someone at your place of employment has told them that it is inconvenient for you to receive phone calls at work, they can’t call you. It is breaking the FDCPA if they do.
*They can only call between 8 AM and 9 PM. Anything above and beyond this is breaking the law.
*They cannot call you names, threaten you, call more than a couple times a day, cuss you out, or anything of that nature.

I personally had fun with the last one one day. I was helping my older father out at the time and was representing him for some things. He started getting these awful phone calls from this guy “Christopher Adams.” or C.A. for short. I have never heard such filthy language in my life. Calling my father an old coot who should be taken out to pasture and shot because he was worthless and couldn’t pay his bills. In the meantime, he had called my sister and a few other family members claiming he was an attorney, a police officer, and a member of the FBI. I got a hold of a Skype number so the call couldn’t be traced and called into his office. I explained that I was Power of Attorney for the person he was harassing, and started going over the list of violations that he had committed. He tried to turn the tables on me, calling me a “piece of work.” When I got off the phone after reminding him not to call again, I immediately called the police filed a complaint, and filed a complaint with the State Attorney General’s office. We never heard from the guy again.

So what can we do to help you? We can stop the harassment immediately. In some cases, we can even help you in getting up to $1000 for each violation of the law as well. Visit our website to learn more at http://www.kenyoncreditservices.com and contact us today!

Can a collection be put back on my credit report once removed?

Legally, and in a word, no.

This is one of the questions that we get asked most frequently. We say no, but it’s a bit more complicated than that.

Let’s give an example: let’s say John Doe Collections is listed on your credit file, and is 10 years old. It is disputed as “obsolete” and is removed from your credit file.   3 months later you find out that a brand new collection is on your report and after a little investigating you find out that a junk debt buyer has purchased this old and obsolete debt from John Doe Collections and is trying to collect on it.

Junk Debt Buyer has now also broken the law. Before an item can be inserted on your credit file, you have 30 days to dispute the information, and they must notify you of this. Junk Debt Buyer hasn’t done this, and you can now collect $1000 for each violation of the law!

Most states have Statute of Limitations laws that essentially make a debt contract invalid after a certain time. Many junk debt buyers, and even collections agencies don’t care and don’t bother to follow the law. And if a company is calling you at all odd hours of the day telling you how worthless you are, threatening to have you arrested, or anything else, they are breaking the law!