FDCPA - Illegal Debt Collection Tactics

We hear about illegal debt collection tactics every day at our law firm. The debt collector threatens to garnish wages or press fraud charges. Threats of jail time or job loss are common as well.

Maybe the collector contacts friends, family or neighbors to discuss the debt with them, or, to embarrass you into paying. We have also seen letters sent to employers asking them to garnish wages.

All of these collection tactics are illegal according to the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). The FDCPA is a federal law that governs the rights that you have as a debtor and the activities that a debt collector can engage in when trying to collect on a debt.

Let's take a look at some of the above listed threats and discuss why they are illegal. The first threat, wage garnishment, is a very common threat. In the state where I practice law, Pennsylvania, wage garnishment cannot occur on a credit card case, ever. To make a threat of wage garnishment in Pennsylvania is illegal as per the FDCPA. The reason is that the FDCPA makes it illegal for a debt collector to threaten activity that it cannot carry out. Since wage garnishment cannot occur in PA for credit card debt, the threat of wage garnishment is illegal.

Another common illegal debt collection tactic is to threaten jail time. "Pay this debt or we are going to press charges and you will go to jail". There is no law in the United States that will cause you to go to jail for not paying a credit card debt. Because jail time cannot occur where you have failed to pay a credit card debt, the threat of jail time is illegal.

In many instances, the debt collector will contact your friends, family or neighbors to either get them to pay the debt or to embarrass you into paying the debt. A debt collector may not contact friends, family or neighbors regarding your debt except for under very limited circumstances. The only circumstance where the collector may contact friends, family or neighbors is when they are unable to locate you after making a good faith effort. In that specific instance, the debt collector may contact others to ascertain your location and contact information. Under no circumstances may the debt collector discuss your debt with anyone other than you.

If all of these tactics are illegal, why do debt collectors engage in them? Simple, its very effective to do so. If they call 100 people and use these illegal tactics, maybe 60 of them will pay something to the collector. Of the remaining 40, maybe only one or two will be bright enough to contact a consumer attorney who will then sue the debt collector for violating the FDCPA. (The above numbers are completely made up as an example for you). Anyways, in this hypothetical, you can see that they debt collector will be willing to use illegal tactics and violate the FDCPA because the return on investment is there for them. They make a lot of money using these illegal tactics.