A new KGTV 10News Survey USA Poll shows that most consumers do not know their rights under state and federal debt collection law. The poll showed the following:
- Only 25% of respondents were familiar with the FDCPA;
- 10% of respondents think that consumers have too much protection;
- Over 40% of respondents had been contacted by a debt collector in the past 5 years;
- Almost 90% of respondents said that the debt collector did not inform them of their rights;
- Only a quarter of respondents were treated respectfully by the debt collector;
- Almost half of the people said that they were threatened in some way by the collector;
- More than three quarters of people were contacted by the collector after telling the collector not to call them.
The results are not surprising.Remember, once a collector is told not to call you, they must stop calling you. And if you are threatened, that is a debt collection violation.
Debt collectors, not all of them, but a large number, do not seem to care about the law. The reasons: it is hard for the government to enforce and few individuals want to enforce their rights. They are usually intimidated and pushed into letting the debt collector run roughshod over them.
The important thing is that consumers need to learn their rights under the FDPCA (Fair Debt Collection Practices Act) and the Rosenthal FDCPA, also called the Rosenthal Act.
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