Debt collector harassment is a real problem for those with debt in default, debt collectors will do anything to get you to pay back your debt on their terms even by breaking the law. What consumers don't realize is there is a whole set of laws that protects them from abusive debt collectors. This course teaches you everything you need to know to manage a debt collector situation. In this case, information gives you power. I've shared this information countless times over the years and people have successfully handled it manage their debt collection such situations. In some cases, you can even fight back through an attorney without any cost at all.

This is everything you need to know and probably the most comprehensive course and dealing with debt collectors that you're going to find. Hi, my name is Bob Brooks. Today on this teaching module, we're going to be talking about debt collector management. Now it is my hope that you're watching this out of curiosity and you're not dealing with a debt collector, because it is a tough process because they make the Field an uneven playing field. But if you are dealing with a debt collector, I got great news for you. The information I'm going to share with you today is everything that you need to know, to successfully deal with a debt collector.

Now the problem is, is that debt collectors have a tendency to use threats and harassment as a debt collection tool. And I can't tell you how many people I've talked to through the years who have been through this process with the debt collector. And they're just stressed out almost emotionally sick. It's just some of these stories that I've come across. And when I tell them, You know what they can't do that to you. And then makes in a staff start to explain to them how the process works.

They start to the stress goes away, and they start to get some sense of hope. So I want you to know, if you're dealing with any kind of a debt collector situation, you're going to be extremely hopeful when we get done with this because you're going to know the steps to take and you're going to know how all of this process works. So let's Let's talk a little bit about what the the environment is like they use threats, harassment, they're not out to get a payment, or payment plan. I can't tell you how many people I've talked to this Well, I'm just going to establish a payment plan. They don't want payment plans, they want to be paid. And they're going to do whatever they have to, to get paid.

They're going to push your buttons. I gotta tell you that one of the funniest stories, I was doing the radio show hosting, one afternoon and I had an attorney on and this attorney All he does is Sue debt collectors for debt collector rassman. And so we're talking about the process and how everything that goes through it. And so I go home and walk the door. I'll never forget this. I walked to the door, the the telephone rings, and what are the odds, a debt collectors on the other end?

And so I said, What can I help you with? And he says to me, I need to speak to your wife and I said, Why don't we What do you want speak to my wife about? And he says, Well, she owes money when she lived in Kansas City for electricity bills you never paid and we want to collect it and get this done. So well. First. Have all you've never been to Kansas City much less live there?

I think you got the wrong person. Oh no, I'm convinced we got the right person, this guy starts to push my buttons. And he gets me so riled up. And I take a step back and go, Wait a minute, wait a minute, why am I even had this conversation? I know how this game is played. But they are really, really good at doing this.

And they're effective in their own way at collecting these debt. So let me let me say this with any industry that you have, there's people who do it the right way, the ethical way. And there's people who don't, I mean, that's within the industry. So I don't want to single out and say and make this statement, all debt collectors are bad. That's not what I'm saying. Because there are a percentage of the industry that do it the right way there is I've come across them.

However, having said that, they are a small percentage. So you need to know how to deal with this. And what I was one of the things that that I would encourage people to watch this video is because they might think well, I have Great credit, I've never had dead I've certainly I've never had a debt go bad or anything like that. So why should I have watched this? The chances of you getting contacted by a debt collector are pretty good. And what are you going to do?

And if you don't do the right steps, you could end up with a very, very bad situation. I'll tell you a story about that a little bit. Okay, let's talk a little bit about the process of a debt going this good, going bad. And you really need to understand the workings the mechanics of how this works. So right now you got a you got a debt that's in good standing with the credit card company. You missed that first payment.

Okay, now, you're getting some letters. You missed that second payment, now you're getting some phone calls, and then up to about the third payment, if you haven't paid that they're going to put you into in house collections. Okay, so this is the collection department of the credit card company. Now I want to make a distinction here. While you're in in house collections. The chances of you getting harassed are pretty good because they You can get away with it very easily.

There's a great set of legislation called the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. And this legislation is there to protect consumers from debt collector harassment, we're going to talk about it here in a minute. And it covers third party debt collectors, not in house debt collectors so they can get away with and I have a recording of a phone call from one of the major banks of this person in this collection is just absolutely berating and harassing this consumer. Unbelievable. Not all of them do it, but just know that can happen. So you're in the in house debt collection process.

At some point, they give up, and now you've gone the credit card company says okay, we're done. We're going to get a third party debt collector to collect on our behalf. And so they assign it to a third party debt collector, you start getting those calls. Now if that doesn't go well and they don't collect from you then they could get it back to the back to the credit card company in the credit card company then has a decision of They were on the timeline, remember this, they can give it to a another a different third party debt collector and try the process again, they can sell that debt to a debt buyer. There's companies that are debt buyers that will buy it pennies on the dollars and they'll try. They'll they own it, and they'll try to collect or they could take a legal action against you.

There's so there's there's really three possibilities of where it could go. Once again, you got to know exactly what kind of arrangement who owns the debt. I mean, this is extremely important to know, because you're wasting your time. If the credit card company has sold the debt to a debt buyer, you calling the credit card company, they don't want to talk to you, they don't own your debt. So real critical to know exactly where that ownership is. Now, first things first, you got to know two different time periods that are very, very important.

One more important the other and that is the time period where a debt collector or the owner of a debt On your debt, excuse me, can take legal action. And I got to tell you, we want to prevent legal action, absolutely prevented. This is, this is where things really unwound and get out of control. Okay, this period of time is called the statute of limitations period in Texas and is determined by each state. In Texas where I reside, it's four years. So you take the first missed payment, and you go out four years, some attorneys interpret interpreted as four and a half, but you get the idea.

Four years and in that period, they have legal right to take action, legal action against you as a means of debt collection. Okay? Once you get out of that window, that time period, you can breathe a sigh of relief, because that's over with now, they could still actually they could still take legal action against you, but you'd have a defense against it, because you were out of the statute of limitations period. It that's what once you get out of that period, that's when the danger that the stress the tough part of this process goes away. Now to two or three things is but as we take a break here for a second, number one, I'm talking about a lot of legal legalities, the legal definitions. That's everything I'm not.

I'm not an attorney. I'm not trying to play one on a video. So if you need legal help, don't take it from me go see an attorney. Number two, I'm not presenting this information as a means to tell you, hey, just blow off that debt and don't pay it. If you owe the debt, you owe the debt, you should pay the debt. And number three, I'm not sure trying to show you how to get out of paying a debt.

I'm trying to show you how to manage and level the playing field and make sure that you know exactly what's happening so you can you can manage the process. Okay, so statue limitations period, extremely, extremely important that you know, and listen, if you're in a situation right now where you've let a debt go, and it's in the collection process, document that first missed payment. It's a very important date so that you'll know it. Now the second one, it's a little bit longer. It's seven and a half years. And that is the amount of time that they can report on your credit report this negative item.

So you take that first missed payment that day go out seven and a half years. And that's how long they can report it once that seven and a half year period is over, that that item can be removed from your credit report, and you're back in good shape again. Now keep in mind something, you could go through the statue of limitations period, you could go through the credit reporting period, you could be all done with that. And you got to remember that no matter what you still always owe the debt, the debt goes to your grave with you. So the thing to keep in mind is that when you're when that debt still could be circular circulating around the system, it could be that a debt buyer picks that debt back up, and then they go and put it back on your credit report making it look like a new debt.

So it's really important to manage your credit report throughout throughout your your lifetime to make sure that you're not getting inaccurate information put back on your Report. Now, you know, this is this highlights to me why you got to do everything possible to stay current. You know, I know it's one of those things where you look at it and you go, Oh, it's hopeless, I'm never going to get out of debt, I might as well just give up. I hope that this is kind of illustrated to you, the the situation you're going to create, it's going to follow you around because you didn't do everything you could to pay that debt back to keep paying making the minimum payments. And I want to I want to give you a little bit of hope, because I have talked in Council with many people throughout the year throughout the years that have come into my office, and they go, Ah, you know, here's my hopeless situation.

Look at all this debt. And once they really learn the mechanics, and we're going to do a video on this, by the way, once they learn the mechanics of getting out of debt the right way, and then they realize hey, wait a minute, I could be out of debt for years. And there's not been a debt situation that's ever walked into my office that I did they person is not left with hope. Because you just got to know what you're doing. This is why financial education is so extremely important. Now, here is the good news.

And this is what most people don't know that there's actually a set of consumer laws that protect the consumer against debt collector harassment. And I gotta tell you, not a whole lot of great things come out of Washington. This legislation was great legislation and great consumer protection. Basically what it is not read it from front to back, believe it was it was a, it was a task that, that legislation, though, will spell out what a debt collector can do, and what a debt collector can't do. Now, the list of what a debt collector can do is about this long, and then the list is this long of what they can't do. We're covering everything from they can't threaten to arrest you.

They can't threaten to garnish your wages. They can't threaten to take your home from you. They can't threaten to take your driver's license from you. I mean, it's some of the crazy Things that they will threaten you with this. This individual called me a couple weeks ago and said, I don't know what to do. I was just got off the phone with a debt collector.

And they told me that if I don't pay by Tuesday, by Tuesday, they've talked to the district attorney's office, and they are going to come arrest me. Now, if I got that phone call, and I didn't have any idea there was consumer protection out there. I would, I would be pretty stressed. I mean, think about it that get arrested, but they can't do it. They cannot arrest you. They can't call you 30 times during the day.

They can't call you at work, especially if you told them not to do so. And then another another story was where a debt collector called a lady's boss and said Do you realize your employees next con, and the boss fires the lady of course she's got two lawsuits now. And then the the time where a lady answers her phone or listens to the answering machine. The debt collector has called and said if you don't pay by a certain debt, I'm going to come kidnap your daughter. These are true stories. And you can just imagine the fear that that comes up when when you're dealing with this, and, and not knowing what your rights are.

But this is the good thing about the law is that it is designed to help you out now, the debtors best friend, and there is a an enormous disclaimer with this. But I'm going to tell you about the letter that you can write they literally stopped collection activity. But there is a disclaimer, by law. You can write a letter cease and desist letter to the credit to the debt collector, saying please cease and desist. All activity collection activity on the debt you allege and I'll come back to that word, I owe. One simple sentence.

Okay. Send it certified mail. And then you'll get a receipt back that they received it now once they receive it, they cannot collect on that debt. They cannot continue they have to stop by law. There was a story of a lady who, and this is why the person with perfect credit, listen, you got to hear this. There was the story of the lady who received a notice from a debt collector.

She reads it she's, well, this is not me. I've never had a debt. I don't owe the debt. This is just not me. And so she sends a cease and desist letter. Time goes by a little bit, her husband gets sick, and she's really preoccupied.

She starts getting debt collector letters. Again, same company. she ignores it because she thinks well, I sent them a cease and desist letter. I've done what I'm supposed to do, and they can't collect the debt. Then she gets a letter stating that arbitration proceedings now they don't do arbitration anymore in debts and debt settlement cases but used to they did arbitration proceedings, we're going to start and she ignored that too. Next thing you know, she gets a letter in the mail stating that a judgment has been awarded against her a legal judgment, stating that she Legally owes this money that she never had it was not her debt, because she didn't pay attention.

You've got to pay attention, you got to understand what's going on as far as this is why I think this, this particular video is extremely important for everybody to be watching in this information that you know, now, here is the disclaimer. If you send a cease cease and desist says, a cease and desist letter to a debt collector, you are forcing them to stop collecting, and you're forcing the debt collector or the credit card company whoever owns the debt, you're forcing them into a corner. And what happens is that now they have to make a decision. Do they stop they obviously they're gonna stop trying to collect the debt. Do they sell the debt to a debt buyer? Or do they take legal action?

So you could you may have put yourself into a situation where you have fast forwarded legal action again, You, so you got to be careful, you got to know that's the dice, you're rolling, and that that could happen. So that's that's the one disclaimer that goes along with that. Now here is the good news, you have the ability to take legal action against a debt collector, if they violate your rights. That's the good news. The law states that you can actually file a lawsuit against for debt collector harassment, and you can get an attorney for free to do that, because it's the better part of the law is that the law states that the attorney can make the debt collector pay the fees, it's it's a great consumer protection. I've referred many, many people too, this one attorney, and that's all he does is Sue these debt collectors.

Now, it's interesting because these these cases rarely make it to court. They just settle out of they'll just do a settlement out of court because they know that the vast majority of people that they're using threats and harassment to collect, and they're gonna make a lot of money with that if they're willing to pay on the 5% who lawyer up it but it's a great company. tumor protection. Now, let's say that you're on the other side, you you get the legal papers, they're taking legal action against you, you've got to respond. And you've got to get an attorney to do this. I know that might cost some money, but it is definitely worth doing it.

Because think about this for a second, let's go back to the 95 5% split 95% of these legal cases, or they're taking care of they're taking action against the consumer. They're not going to do anything, they're going to ignore it. And the debt collector is going to get the judgment almost every single time. The 5%, who lawyer up? Why would they spend the time and the effort dealing with someone who's got an attorney when they got 95%, who would have no attorneys, they're not going to do anything. That's not a hard and fast rule.

I've just seen that work many, many times and work in the favor of the consumer. So you've got to take action. If it's just to get an attorney to write a letter for you. You got to do it and make sure that you follow through. Now handling the call This is real important because like I said, you can have perfect credit. And you could still get this call from a debt collector because debt collectors are notorious for calling it the debt belongs to Joe Smith.

And they don't really know where Joe Smith is. They're going to call any Joe Smith, they can try to collect the debt. It's a game there's it's a, it's a business of collecting and getting revenue. So if you get that call, the first thing you want to do is verify if it's actually your debt, and you can request that they send a letter of verification to you with the information about the debt and stay calm. Remember, it's just a game, they can't physically harm you. They can't arrest you.

They can't do anything that they say that they can do now they start to a rash you need to start gathering evidence. A lot of times Believe it or not, a debt collector will leave a message on a answering machine stating that stating the threat. This case I told you about a while ago with the young lady was called by the debt collector and they said they were going to arrest her this debt collector actually left that evidence sitting on an answering machine, go figure. So you've got to gather that evidence. And if you're innocent, this is not legal advice. If you're in a state that allows for you to record telephone calls, you definitely want to do so and take advantage of it.

But you got to get evidence. You want to start a file, if it is your if it is your debt, you want to start a file and keep organized notes of what's happening, and make sure that you take care of the situation as best as possible. You know, here's the good news. The good news is that there's a process you can go through, there's protection out there, it's just that you once again, it always comes back to you gotta get an education understand how to handle these situations when they arrive. If you're dealing with a debt collector, have hope. Apply some of these principles and manage the situation and get out of it once and for all.