When facing financial challenges at some point creditors may start calling you. So you may be asking yourself â€What can I do to stop creditors from contacting me?†Bankruptcy is the perfect solution to that. In the event that you’re not ready to file bankruptcy or you’re still collecting your attorney’s fees and your filing fees for your bankruptcy case or you have some planning to do for your bankruptcy and you’re not in a position to do that, you want to have those creditors stop contacting you. Your first step is to write them a letter. Now this will depend on whether this is the original creditor or if it’s a debt collector. There is a law; it’s a federal law, that’s called the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. It limits debt collectors, but it doesn’t apply to the original creditors. With regards to debt collectors, people who’ve purchased your debt or the original creditor has turned the debt over to them, they cannot contact you by phone if you to write them and ask them not to contact you by phone. What you simply say is, â€I’m attempting to resolve this debt and at this time pursuant to the Fair Debt Collections Act, I’m asking that you not contact me by phone, either at work or at home. All of our communication must be in writing.†You have to put that in writing. You have to mail it to them and we strongly suggest that you mail it out by certified mail. Strangely enough, many creditors and collection agencies will claim that they never received your letter. Now the importance of that is, if they violate your request after you’ve note that they’ve received it, and then there is within the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, there is violation penalty for having done so. And it can be up to $1000. So when you’re getting yourself ready for bankruptcy and you want some breathing room before you file, start drafting some letters and send them out to your creditors asking them not to contact you at home and not to contact you over the phone. Ask that all contact be in writing. They have to follow that and that’s going to give you some peace of mind before your file bankruptcy. If you never intend to file bankruptcy, this is simply going to be a Band-Aid, and they will no longer contact you by phone. They will continue to write you, but it doesn’t stop the collection process. They can also bring suit against you, meaning they can bring a law suit, and they can seek a judgment that would allow them to garnishee you or to take funds from any of your bank accounts. So treat it as a Band-Aid. It’s just there for the purposes of stopping the phone calls. It doesn’t stop the collection process itself. But it does give some peace of mind and some breathing room.
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