Debt Collecting- An Uphill Battle

Debt collecting is getting harder and harder.  The reason for this increase in the difficulty of collecting debt is related to the increase in rights that are given to the one that is in debt.  The government offers less protection on the part of the lender.  Nowadays, it is the one that is in debt that gets the most protection.   Take a look at a few regulations that make it nearly impossible to collect debt in a timely fashion. 

The word ‘harass’ is not used sparingly in the bounds of the debt collectors regulations.  Pretty much anything more than a few calls can constitute as harassment under the government’s eyes.  Debt collectors are not allowed to make repeated phone calls.  This obviously poses a problem for a collector when the person they are trying to reach is dodging them. 

Debt collectors are not allowed to call a person before 8am or after 9pm.  With that being said, they are also not allowed to call the borrower at their place of employment if you specify.  How can the debt collector reach their prospect if their work hours are the entire day?  It begins to be a cat and mouse game of making phone calls in hopes that you will get lucky enough to reach the person.  Good luck reaching them if they are expecting your call.

As if debt collecting isn’t hard enough, the person in debt can also make a request to only be contacted through mail.  Once this request is made the debt collector is no longer allowed to make phone calls.  With this method, the collector doesn’t even have the opportunity to ensure the one in debt is reading the letter or getting the message. 

With the rise of debt also comes the rise of protection against those in debt.  Debt collecting isn’t going to get easier as long as the government continues to offer maximum support to the one in debt and minimal support to the collector.