HANDLING CREDITORS

HANDLING CREDITORS

Anybody who has been late at least once in their lifetime in making
payments towards credit cards would have gone through this horrifying
experience of talking to creditors. If you are late in making your
payments or miss more than a couple of payments at a stretch credit
card issuers would immediately set their collection agents after you.
These collection agents are exclusively trained and experienced in
handling the most persistent variety of clients and would mete out a
similar treatment to everyone who they are asked to deal with
irrespective of whether they belong to a more timid and less harmful
category.

They will be after you boring you with long telephone calls and if you
still delay your payments they would not hesitate to threaten you or
your family members or even go to the extent of harassing you. You are
definitely at mistake if you do not pay your dues on time. But you are
not liable to go through the irritation and trauma that your creditors
are subjecting you to and you can take legal action against them.

The federal laws that come under the Fair Debt Collection Practices
Act makes precise references to what can amount to illegal harassment
from creditors. So if at all you need to react against creditors who
trouble you incessantly you should first understand what comes under
illegal harassment.

Calls during unusual hours of the day.

Your creditor or collection agency cannot call you at his whims and
fancies just because you owe them some money. For example even if
there is some emergency there is absolutely no need for your creditor
to call you at 4 in the morning or at midnight. These calls amount to
being illegal harassment and there is no reason for you to answer or
for that matter even entertain such calls. In fact if you face trouble
at your workplace due to persistent calls form your creditor you can
always give them timings when you will be available in writing and you
need to attend only those calls that they make at this time.

False notions about how they plan to collect the amount from you.

Creditors are known to resort to the worst threats to take their
payments from you. There have been numerous instances where debtors
have been threatened with a lot of dangers should they not pay their
dues on time. Some common examples of threats made include calling up
your employer to inform them of your debts. Most collectors feel that
debtors get intimidated by this threat because of the embarrassment
that they are likely to face at their workplace when their employer
becomes aware of the debts that they have. Yet another threat is that
they would claim your assets like your home or vehicle if you do not
pay your dues on time.
It would be good to remember that they cannot do either of these
because they are illegal. On the other hand you could charge an
allegation on them stating that they used illegal harassment.

Misrepresenting the debt amount.

Creditors have a policy of adding charges like attorney fees or
collection expenses towards a debt which is not legal as per the
statues of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. You can sue the
creditor for illegal harassment should he misrepresent any information
related to yoru debt or add any additional charges to it.
But in spite of so much being done as part of Fair Debt Collection
Practoces Art creditors and collection agents seem to be the least
bothered and still use even the most underhand means to bother their
debtors and squeeze the money out of them. So in order to keep
creditors at bay the best thing is to pay your dues on time and avoid
running into credit card debt in future.
But as of now you are already in trouble with your creditors and have
been facing the brunt of your debt from debt collection agencies. Here
are some things that you should mandatorily do so that you are
guaranteed that the debt collection agencies and the credit card
company does not get the better of you.

Make sure you have documented proof of every interaction.

Proof is important when you allege harassment charges on someone. So
make sure that you document every interaction of yours with the credit
card company and the collection agency. This would include the details
of the conversation, the name of the person you spoke to and
designation, the time and duration of your call and the details of the
conversation. You can also record the telephone call. But make sure
you inform them that you are recording the call so that they cannot
charge you on grounds of illegal wire tapping.

Take legal help.

This means that you should contact an attorney at the earliest. You
may be able to handle the creditor if he just contacts you at home.
But there are numerous cases where the creditor makes threatening
calls to your relatives or starts calling you at work. The worst case
scenario is when the creditor speaks to your superior. Even when they
start plaguing you at your workplace your work starts suffering
resulting in depleting your performance at your workplace and your
income is also bound to suffer. Added to that is the poor image that
you create for yourself amongst your colleagues.

Such harassment needs to be taken seriously and once your creditor
starts doing that it means that it is time to call in the expert. Take
a personal referral for an attorney who is experienced at handling
such cases. You can also approach the bar association for references.
The attorney will then start taking calls on your behalf as well as
speak to the creditors. They will make sure that no calls reach you at
your workplace by using legal means.

Send the creditor a certified letter.

You can do this yourself or better still ask your attorney to do it.
He will send a letter to the creditor with return receipt requested.
The letter will be asking the creditor to stop sending any
communication to your workplace or harassing you with calls or threats
of any sort. You can also state that the practice of harassment is
illegal and you could sue them for it under the Fair Collection
Practices Act.
Once they send you the return receipt it means that they cannot send
you any more threats or call you directly. If the calls still continue
you can go ahead and file a case against them. But make sure that you
keep a filed copy of the letter you sent the creditor as well as their
acknowledgment of having received your communication because that is
what will be taken as proof.

Look out for a chance to negotiate.

When the creditor makes a call to you however intimidating it may be,
be calm and composed. Try to see if he is open to negotiation. You may
be able to close the debt at a lower amount and the creditor may even
be willing to waive off extra charges if you are willing to make a
full repayment. So exploit any such opportunity you may have.

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Posted by Miles on Feb 2 2011. Filed under 0% Apr credit Cards • Credit Card . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.