How to respond to a debt collector
Do you have debt that you owe to someone else, and finally debt collector contacted you for the first time? If that is the situation, the FDCPA (Fair Debt Collection Practices Act) requires that any debt collector should contact you via written statement within 5 days. In the notice, there should be an indication of the owing amount and the name of the creditor that you owe the money to. If the original creditor sold the debt to the debt collector, then it should be described in the notice. It also should specify that you have full rights to request a written verification of the debt details, in case you want to dispute the situation.
Whether you agree that you owe the debt or not, it is always a good practice to request the debt collector to specify, in writing, the amount and more in dept details. Items can be included such as penalty amount, late fees, interest details and collection fees. When you put these request in writing, always send the letter via certified mail with signature required. After you have received the receipt of the mail, you can move on to the next steps depending on the situation.
If you agree that you owe a debt, then you have two choices: Pay the amount you owe or you can notify the debt collector that you cannot afford to pay the amount at the moment and also you don’t want to be contacted in the future. When you make a decision of this kind, always make sure not to pay low priority debt if it risk and impact your everyday living expenses and other necessities by doing so.
In other situation where you agree that you owe a debt however you cannot afford to pay the amount in a lump sum over the period of time or any kind of settlement agreement, then you can still send the letter to the collector stating that you cannot pay the amount and you don’t want to be contacted again. It won’t remove the debt responsibility that you have permanently, but it will have the collector stop calling you or sending you the letters. FDCPA specifies that they should cease all contact with you after receiving your letters. Only exception will be when they need to confirm that they won’t contact you again or inform you of any necessary actions that they will take accordingly.
If you don’t agree that you owe a debt and you have strong belief that it is not the amount that you owe, then go ahead and send a certified letter to the debt collector stating so within 30 days of the date when they contacted you very first time. By FDCPA rule, they should provide you with full evidence and proof of written documents showing the amount of the money that you owe, otherwise they must stop contacting you immediately.
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