Imagine you are sitting in your New York home enjoying dinner with your family. The phone rings. Mispronouncing your name, the person on the other end asks if you’re available. You ask who it is. The voice says he selling new decks and that you badly need a new one. You hang up the phone feeling your time violated.
Telemarketers and solicitors came about because of advances in telecommunications technology: auto dialers, predictive dialers, and pre-recorded messages. The business calculated that because it was cheap to blanket a locality with automatic phone calls, sufficient numbers of people would buy their products, no matter how annoyed residents were. The residents, though, banded together and contacted their legislators, leading Congress to pass the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) in 1991. In 2003, the government created a national “Do-Not-Call” registry to preemptively prevent businesses from making telephonic solicitations.
Businesses trying to make a sale aren’t the only people who benefit from auto dialers. The same technology that allows them to call thousands of people in a day enables debt collectors to hunt down debtors. The auto dialers call the numbers, and when people pick up, the calls are transferred to agents who read displays of the debtors’ credit history. The system is very efficient. The predictable result? Harassment and TCPA violations.
Using auto dialers itself isn’t illegal, but collectors cannot use them in two circumstances:
- To call a debtor’s cell phone, or one belonging to a third party, and
- To call a telephone number other than the debtor’s
There are exceptions to these rules. Most importantly, if the debtor gives the collector permission to call his or her cell phone, the collector is permitted to do so. The same is true if the cell phone is the only number the debtor gave the collector. However, permission given can be permission rescinded. If you receive a call from a collector on your cell phone, tell the agent that yours is a cell phone and that it doesn’t have permission to call you. Do not let the collector’s agent tell you that it’s the only number on file or anything like that. That’s the collector’s problem, not yours.
The penalty for calling a number other than yours on an auto dialer to collect on a debt you owe is severe for the collector, $500 for each call. If the collector knew the number wasn’t yours, the penalty is $1,500. These add up fast for unscrupulous collectors, but they know they’ll make money on it. It doesn’t have to be you.
If you’re called on your cell phone, or one of your family members, friends, or coworkers receives calls from people trying to collect on debts you owe, you can call your bankruptcy lawyer. You probably don’t know if an autodialer was used, but your attorney might be able to subpoena the collector’s records to find out.
Collectors want you to feel stressed and trapped; don’t let them get away with it.
If you have more questions about debt collectors and the bankruptcy process, feel free to contact experienced fair debt collection practices act Bruce Weiner for a free initial consultation.
