If a collection agency calls 4 timestimes a day and they constantly hang up on me, can I sue them for harassment?
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If a collection agency calls 4 timestimes a day and they constantly hang up on me, can I sue them for harassment?
A collection agency calls me anywhere form 3 to 6 times a day. Most times they hang up after I say hello 3 or 4 times. When I answer all I get is silence, they never try to identify themselves. The one time I did talk to someone they flat out lied to me and said I had spoken with someone earlier that day which is not true; I have the phone records to prove it. The person I did speak to kept blaming it on their automated system. The calls keep coming and now they are becoming more frequent. Can I sue them for harassment? What would be my options on this?
Asked on September 7, 2010 under Bankruptcy Law, Pennsylvania
Answers:
SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 14 years ago | Contributor
You have rights against a collections agency; there are rules about when and how they can contact you, for example, and you also have the right to tell them to not contact you at all anymore (this must be done in writing, I believe). Look up the Fair Debt Collections Practices (FDCPA) to see how it applies to your specific situation. Of course, nothing stops the agency from escalating to suing you--while there are rules about how they can try to collect, they have the right to bring a legal action to enforce or collect on a debt. Therefore, while you can stop much of, possibly all of, the harassment by a collections agency, that does not resolve the issue of the underlying debt, which is something you will need to deal with soon or later. Good luck.
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