If you receive a call from a debt collector, it means you have an unpaid bill – that has been in arrears for possibly a few months. You are now considered a bad debt, usually after attempts by the company to contact you have been ignored and you have not tried to contact them or make some sort of payment against the debt.

Debt collection agencies know that you will avoid contact with them, just as you have with the company you owe money to. They tend to be more direct and forceful in their efforts, as they have been hired to do a job. To a debt collector, you are not a customer. You are now called a debtor. This is not something to be proud of, or sought after, and you should try to remain a paying customer before it gets to this stage.

Credit reporting agencies often receive their information from debt collection agencies. These agencies keep track of your credit record. It is the main indicator on how responsible you are with money. Car dealers, mortgage companies, and credit card issuers look at credit reports to determine if you will be a good customer – that is, one who pays their bills.

If debt collectors cannot find you at your last known address or telephone number, they use a variety of tools to locate you. So don’t think that if you move you are home free. Because they have been hired to find you and collect the outstanding money, they will resort to embarrassing you by contacting your employer, neighbor or even your child’s school in order to track you down. They will do everything they can to find you and collect the debt, as that not only provides their customer with better service – it is often the only way they can get paid for the job they have done.

Because there are Federal regulations governing the debt collection industry, their treatment of you should follow a particular code or guideline, although of course there are some agencies who will flaunt these regulations. If you believe that you do not owe money to the original company, you should contact them immediately.You can also try working with the debt collector to work out the confusion. But however you choose to do it, make sure that you keep copies of all of your paperwork and any communication regarding the issue. You should also track the calls and letters that the agency sends to you.

If the agency is using threatening tactics against you, even if you do owe the money, you should immediately report them to the Better Business Bureau. This is a violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the federal law that guides the practices of the debt collection industry.

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