on the Bankruptcy Soapbox

Debt collectors have noticed and decried the growing understanding of debtors about their rights to fair debt collection.  Federal law in the form of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act regulates the conduct of third party collectors. Those protections apply everywhere and more and more attorneys are learning how to assert those rights on behalf of their clients.
Californians have an expanded set of rights as debtors under the Rosenthal Fair Debt Collection Act: this law applies the rights created in the federal FDCPA to the  original creditor as well as the third party collector.

One of the most useful aspect of the California statute for many of my clients is the right it creates to be left alone:  the right to be free of collection calls and letters.  There are a couple of limited exceptions, but overall, it empowers the debtor to escape incessant collection efforts.

If you need freedom from debt collectors, write them invoking your right not to be contacted with reference to the Rosenthal Act, date it; sign it; keep a copy, and send it off.  Two things may happen:  the creditor obeys the law and you get peace at home; or they violate the law, and you have a right to sue for  the violation, including the right to collect your attorneys fees to do so.   Won’t the role reversal of debtor becoming  creditor really make the collectors mad?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007 at 7:42 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.