Harassing calls from a debt collector? Here is what you need to know

DP, You said, "If you want to be called between 4pm and 7 pm, tell them in writing." Give the time AND the time zone, e.g. 123-45-6789 PST (Pacific Standard Time).

DP, You said, "If you want to be called between 4pm and 7 pm, tell them in writing." Give the time AND the time zone, e.g. 4pm-7pm PST (Pacific Standard Time).

Check your state's recording laws. Texas is a 1 party must know state meaning if i know i am recording i don't have to tell the other person. I have used in court and in my investigations. So you may eant to revord first if your state allows 1 party and at end tell them.

Block their phone number

give them the name to the cemetery too...if thats where they can find him lol!

They keep calling everyday but won't tell you who you owe the money to or how much you owe and you ask them to send you a letter which they haven't .  They call every day from 2 different numbers. I don't owe anyone money and when they call it is robot call and they don't leave a message.

me too

look on the consumer financial protection bureau website, they have a form letter you can print out and send them certified mail stating that you dispute the debt and that will show on your credit report as well.  howie I hope you would know who to send this letter to.

Howie either won't tell us or doesn't know who "they" are. He should be commenting in the threads for those "two different numbers" if the latter problem is true.

If all else can be taken as true, look what he's up against. The unnamed agency won't send letters, won't answer questions, and abandons those calls which don't reach a human. Secretive behavior patterns point usually to cowardly thugs with no valid claim. Dispute letters are wasted on goons like that. Better they should receive a notice to "go play in highway traffic" or "get stuffed in a rain barrel", if a working address is ever found.

My support for Cert Mailed notices is well documented on this website. It's also known my support for letter templates is very weak. Sadly the CFPB versions don't improve much on the genre. Looks like they were all spewed out in a single afternoon eight years ago. Their grammar is awful and they have the "voice" of a grade school child. The dispute letter you thought of functions like a rambling set of interrogatories which might work for a court case but are overkill for the very low debt validation standard set by the FDCPA. Upon the letter's release, opponents of the CFPB said the same thing. It's the sole time I'd ever agreed with them on anything.

How to tell the difference between a legitimate debt collector and scammers - CFPB blog, Oct 2018
What should I do when a debt collector contacts me? - CFPB, contains links to their collector response letters

What was not mentioned is the fact if you chose not to engage with the collector and the statue of limitations expires they can no longer invoke a judgement - the time frame varies per state. At that point you continue towards the 7 years of the default when the debt expires and all are required to be legally removed from all 3 credit bureaus. Bit of a risk but it's reality also. It's important never to engage with the collector or the clock restarts the 7 year process. Concisely know the default date of the original account as the default date starts the clock for the 7 year removal of the negative debt.

Heavily I sigh, for you are promoting very persistent myths.

First the low-hanging fruit: The term is "statute" as in law, not a sculptural construct.

Next, the spoiler alert: Keeping quiet like a frightened cricket is not viable strategy when debt collectors want your savings and future earnings.

Yes, the point of statutes of limitations on consumer debt is to set a shot clock for creditor lawsuits, and SoL varies by state. The statutes do not, however, prevent the filing of those stale claim lawsuits. They also do not prevent creditors from winning judgments, even to collect on those moldy "zombie debt" accounts which they likely cannot prove valid. While consumer lawyers wish it were otherwise, SoL defenses are not self-executing. Put simply, someone on the defense side has to tell the Court why it's a dead issue. People are paying unfairly for this sort of junk debt for the rest of their adult lives because they didn't know how to fight and/or could not obtain the proper legal help.

Many, so many people confuse statutes of limitations, being state laws, with a Federal requirement under FCRA to delete derogatory tradelines from credit reports. Those two things do not intersect. Credit report entries do not prove that debt is owed and have no place in creditor lawsuits. The FCRA deletion is actually seven years plus a half because default and "date of last activity" are never the same, part of weedy rules which I wish would get streamlined.

Anyway, the passing of that seven year limit does not "expire" debt. Sure, reporting on the debt disappears and maybe its absence improves a person's score. But the debt itself has not disappeared. It remains forever legal to collect until discharged by a judge (or killed by the peculiar Repose laws of two states). In multiple states the applicable SoL won't end for another three to eight years. That's a long time to try living under the threat of a lawsuit.

The need to "engage with the collector" is frankly unavoidable if you want to fully defend your rights and also defeat a lawsuit if launched. That's why the FDCPA sets rules of conduct, and also why statutes of limitations have nothing to say about communication with debt collectors.

This has to be repeated far too often, that SoL cannot be reset by merely talking on the phone or sending letters. Sending money, what the collector wants most, does reset. Promising to pay may reset SoL, the subject of barrels of spilled legal ink on whether that's right or wrong. Crying poverty and expressing worry over how to pay may reset SoL, at least in the eyes of slanted and lazy judges who should know better.

Merely talking or writing to debt collectors does not restart any seven year FCRA clock. That's for reporting and lender risk scoring, not collection, remember? The tradeline must vanish by deadline and nothing beyond stupidity or error can prevent this. I'm sure the FCRA allows us to sue them off if those bad marks won't go quietly.

What really concerns you is getting tricked into some punishing payment plan, the kind desired by junk debt buyers and enforced by compliant judges who rubber-stamp default and stipulated judgments by the dozen every month. I've already sketched out what springs the trap. Sidestepping it means not cowering in silence and behaving like a victim. Taking those pesky phone calls is how smart defenders most often gather evidence of collector lawbreaking. If you think you can't handle phone duels, avoid them, but don't avoid all contact. Predatory debt collectors like eating the silent types best.

Time-Barred Debts  (FTC)
Time-Barred Debts: When Collectors Cannot Sue You for Unpaid Debts  (Nolo)

Portfolio Recovery Associates is the world's worst. They have been calling my sister nonstop about a Crap One Credit card she defaulted on in 2009 at the height of the "Great Recession", even though they acknowledge the SOL expired in our state years ago and they can't sue her. We learned from dealing with them years ago with my late BIL you just can't tell them to cease communication on an out-of-statue debt---not if you don't want a tax bill from the IRS. Fortunately they defaulted when I appealed the tax bill on his behalf and they failed to submit documentation substantiating their claim on the "forgiven" debt. That was a big relief and victory for him, as he could no longer work and was battling cancer--a fight which he soon lost.

I remember that story with your tortured BiL. Your conquest proved that informed resistance works on paper tigers.

I regret to learn that you've another sibling victimized by the same enemy, which so often plays a weak hand that bluffs are expected like a sunrise. I'm a little surprised Cap One never got around to suing, being historically in the top three litigious banks.

I would hate to find out that you and yours are declining to defend your rights out of fear of retaliation, done indirectly by cowards. Here's my strategic input for consideration:

Have Sis send PRA a curt notice saying that she's reviewed their kind interest in the musty and unsubstantiated credit card debt and she refuses to pay. Don't bother with any other demands or explaining herself. Send by Cert Mail with green card as usual. Maybe indicate that she's carbon copying to the state AG, CFPB, and/or FTC. (I might actually do that in this rare instance, just to put extra eyeballs on the problem and alert the watchdogs to the feared abuse of IRS forms.)

Here's where I'm risking self-repetition myself, having endorsed this response elsewhere many times. Announcing refusal to pay has the same effect as a blatant cease-comm, per FDCPA §1692c(c). Some witless agencies have been known to miss its meaning, stomping right into the bear trap.

Should PRA continue collection by any method, Sis should have but to teach PRA's house counsel how to spell her name on their settlement check. (I always started my bidding around four grand and raised another if forced to sue. I think six would be fair for recent inflation.) Said settlement can include a request to eat the debt, barring any future spiteful 1099 filing. This I know has succeeded anecdotally, but the principle of negotiating from a strong position is sound.

PRA takes much pride in its algorithmic handling of assets, which in part means they won't make the same kind of response to every alleged debtor. Maybe more like a menu of responses which work most of the time. You really don't know, much like in court, if the same results come consistently from similar circumstances. By avoiding obvious cease-communication language, my wager is that their nonhuman optical character readers won't classify your sister's "talk to the hand" as something which eventually triggers the 1099-C scare you fear.

Again, it's not a given that the "amount in controversy" and whatever other factors we can't guess would add up to another IRS dispute whether or not you resist PRA. They're gambling on your fear, and winning thus far. You can guess my bottom line on this. I don't think your sister's sanity should be bought for cheap.

I keep getting recorded messages for an unknown person at my phone number, asking me to call a long distance number with a file #, etc., etc. How do you call them back at their expense to tell them they have the wrong person?