Are bill collectors allowed to call you on Sunday morning?

Question

I thought there was a law about when bill collectors can call you? What are my rights and what can I do about it if they call anyway?

Answer 1

PAY UP ! They will stop calling.

Answer 2

Depending on the state where the debt is owed, collectors can call you 7 days a week, up to a certain time at night. The most generally used time is 9:00pm. I suggest looking up the debtors law on the internet to find out what the exact laws are in the state where the creditor is located. Most credit card companies are not located in the state where you live, so looking up the laws where you live is not adviseable. That only applies if the creditor's physical address is in the same state as you. It is not considered harrassment if you do not agree to repay the debt. Harrassment would be if you agree to a repayment amount, are following it, and they still continue to call you.

I suggest contacting the collection agency/creditor to set up payment arrangements. Most of them will accept anything that you can afford to pay, and will often times settle with you on the remaining delinquent balance. For example, if your debt is $500, they may cut the debt in half just to get it off their receivables. As long as you adhere to the arrangement, they will not contact you again by phone.

Good luck!!

Answer 3

Bill collectors can call you 24 hours a day 7 days a week. That was an old law. There are only 2 ways you can stop them from calling:

1) pay the debt
2) file bankruptcy (then they are not allowed to contact you)

Answer 4

Collectors are only allowed to call you during the hours of 8 am to 9 pm everyday of the week. This is mandated by the FDCPA, which stands for the Fair Debt Collections Practice Act. Most agencies do not make calls on Sunday, as it is a day of rest, but some do. If you do not want to receive calls about your bills, you can send a letter, via certified mail, or fax telling them you no longer want phone calls on your account. They have to honor this request. However, if you do this, they are very likely to hand over your account to a legal agency that will sue you for the amount due. If you have a job, or assets, i.e. house, sometimes a car, they will put a lien agaist it.

The best thing to do is pay your bills. If you went out and over spent and can not afford to pay according to the agreement you signed, then call the creditor to make some other type of arrangements. If you can not make even the lowest payment that they offer you, your account will charge-off. This usually happens after 6 months for most credit cards, and loans other than mortgages. This means that the bank will write it off as a bad debt that can not be collected, and will then sell the account to another party, i.e. a debt buying company. The new company that purchased your debt will send it out to a third party collection agency which will not be as friendly as your original lender, even though you might not consider them friendly.

With this new collection agency, you might be able to set up payments for small amounts $25 to $40 a month if you continue to make your payments on time. You might also be able to settle the amount for less than the amount you owe. For example, let's say you owe $3,000 and your account has been sold to a third party agency. You have been making $40 payments for 6 months, and then you get a large tax refund. The agency might allow you to settle the account for a smaller percentage of the amount due, usually 70% at the low end. This means that if you call them and agree to a settlement of $1900 they will mark the account as paid in full if you send them the money via certified funds.

No matter what people tell you, you will still have damaged your credit for the next 7 years by not following the agreement that you signed to pay the account in the manner in which it was agreed to by the original creditor. This stays on your credit report for this amount of time. You will end up paying much higher rates of interest to borrow money in the future, and you could be denied credit as well. If you are planning to buy a home, this will hurt your chances of doing this. If you file bankruptcy, it will stay on your credit for 10 years.

You can do things to make your credit better during this time. One is to not rely on credit. Pay for your "needs" with cash. If you can not afford to purchase with cash, you can not afford the item you want. Save up enough money to purchase it right out. When you use credit, for things like buying airline tickets and renting cars, pay the bill in full each month, or over no more than 3 months. Keep your credit spending to 20% or less of your credit limit for each card that you have. This means, if you have a card with a limit of $5,000, you should carry a balance of more than $1,000. These types of behaviors will keep you from getting into trouble in the first place.

Answer 5

There are laws concerning when and where anyone can call you concerning a debt. If they call outside of those times, and you have good documentation, they could be fined. You can check the Fair Credit Reporting Act and it should state when and where they can contact you. I don't know the website, but the information should be available from any of the three major credit reporting agencies. One other thing you can do is send the collection agency a certified letter return receipt requested and tell them that you don't want them to contact you by phone. They must contact you by mail. That should stop them from calling.

Answer 6

a collector can call you anytime they want. They can not call you more than once a day because then that is harrassing you and they could get in trouble for that.

Answer 7

They can't call you if you don't have a phone.

Or, the phone calls can't bother you if the phone ringer is off.

Or, you can route all your calls to voicemail and check them at your leisure.

There are some law(s) that have language that is supposed to prevent them from calling if you tell them to stop, but in practice it just doesn't work.

Answer 8

Yes, the are allowed to call you from about 8am to 9pm. Next time they call, get their address and your account number then send them a letter telling them that they can only contact you by mail. Send the letter certified. Then track when they call you and contact your attorney generals office.

Answer 9

Just tell them you know you are owing now stop calling. If they keep calling it is harrassment, maybe you can sue for enough to pay the bills.

Answer 10

You owe someone money! They can call you at 3am! My suggestion, pay off the debt and sleep like a baby!

Answer 11

I think their all off on Sundays!! One of the lords many blessings!!