Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA)

The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”) is a federal law enacted in 1978 by Congress to protect consumers by punishing debt collectors for engaging in abusive, deceptive, and unfair debt-collection practices. The FDCPA was created because debt collectors persistently engage in collection tactics that are especially designed to inflict emotional distress on consumers by invading their privacy, damaging their reputations, and intimidating them into taking actions they might not have been legally obligated to take.

The Law Offices of Robert S. Gitmeid & Associates, PLLC can educate you about your rights under the FDCPA, take legal action against debt collectors on your behalf, and obtain for you monetary awards afforded by the law.

A debt collector or collection agency may have already violated the FDCPA if they:

• Used obscene or profane language when communicating with you,
• Called you on the telephone repeatedly or continuously with the intent to annoy, abuse, or harass you
• Called you before 8:00am in the morning or after 9:00pm in the evening
• Falsely represented or implied that the debt collector is an attorney or calling on behalf of an attorney (when in fact they are not)
• Represented or implied that you will be arrested or imprisoned for not paying a debt (unless such action would be lawful and the debt collector actually intends to take such action)
• Used deceptive means to represent that documents are legal process (when in fact they are not)
• Disclosed to a 3^rd party (e.g., your employer) information that you owe a debt

If you feel that a creditor has engaged in abusive, deceptive, or unfair collection practices, you may be entitled to a monetary award in court. Call us today!

Below is an excerpt from the actual language of the FDCPA. Congress set forth the FDCPA’s intended purpose very clearly within the body of the law, including the nature of the circumstances that gave rise to the necessary protections it affords:

§ 802. Congressional Findings and Declaration of Purpose

(a) There is abundant evidence of the use of abusive, decep­tive, and unfair debt collection practices by many debt collectors. Abusive debt collection practices contribute to the number of personal bankruptcies, to marital instability, to the loss of jobs, and to invasions of individual privacy.

(b) Existing laws and procedures for redressing these injuries are inadequate to protect consumers.

(c) Means other than misrepresentation or other abusive debt collection practices are available for the effective collec­tion of debts.

(d) Abusive debt collection practices are carried on to a sub­stantial extent in interstate commerce and through means and instrumentalities of such commerce. Even where abusive debt collection practices are purely intrastate in character, they nevertheless directly affect interstate com­merce.

(e) It is the purpose of this title to eliminate abusive debt col­lection practices by debt collectors, to insure that those debt collectors who refrain from using abusive debt col­lection practices are not competitively disadvantaged, and to promote consistent State action to protect consumers against debt collection abuses.