How to Get Credit Collection Agencies to Stop Harassing You

Many debt collection agencies use emotionally draining, disingenuous and generally unfair practices in their attempts to collect unpaid debt. Some scavenger collectors will now try to collect debt that's well past the statute of limitations, use harassing techniques, and even try to collect debt from the debtor's relatives, or people who might not even be related, but just have the name! Fortunately there's a federal law in place which protects the consumer in this case. You can stop a collector from contacting you for purposes of collecting a debt by force of law with the exception of notifying you of a lawsuit.

This is not a magic ticket to avoid paying debts that you legally owe. If you legitimately owe a company money, you should pay it. This doesn't mean that you have to accept their harassment techniques, but it does mean that you should work with them to come up with some sort of settlement plan. Take a call from them once every two weeks or so, and just tell them how you're doing with the debt, what your plans to pay them off are, try to discuss a settlement offer, etc. It's usually not a good idea in this case for file a cease and desist letter for debts that you're paying on and will eventually pay off, because often that will trigger a lawsuit.

If you do come up with an agreement with the creditor, make sure that you get it in writing, otherwise the agreement isn't worth the paper it's written on. When you do pay them, use a money order or a bank draft. You don't want them to have any sort of access to your checking account information. Often times they'll take all of the money out of your account and there's not any real legal recourse.