Collection agencies are in the business of harrassing consumers for payment. .

They will call you at home, at work, and sometimes they will even use "skip tracing" tactics and call your neighbors. Therefore it is extremely important that you know your rights under The Federal Fair Debt Collections Practices Act. A collector is any person, attorney or organization that has been hired to collect a debt for a creditor. Your original creditors can call you just about any time they want to and have more power and less restrictions on collecting what you owe them.

What is important to be aware of is the fact that you have an absolute right under Federal Law to deal directly with your original creditors and you don't have to deal with collection agencies at all.

Once you notify a debt collector in writing that you do not want to be contacted by them any more, they can only contact you one more time to inform you of what action they are going to take. The only time that collection agencies can continue to contact you after you have informed them in writing that you do not want to be contacted again, is when they have actually purchased your debt from your original creditor. In this case they have become your creditor by actually purchasing the debt.