Who is protected under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act
KCLS LIMITS THE GEOGRAPHY IN WHICH WE TAKE CASES.
YOU MUST BE A VIRGINIA RESIDENT.
If you are not a Virginia Resident, click here to find a lawyer near you.
The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act is designed to protect consumers from abusive or harassing conduct, false or misleading statements or unfair act by Debt Collectors.
The first questions to ask in an inquiry is “Am I a consumer who is entitled to protection?”
Lets start with the definition from the statute.
15 U.S.C. §1692a[3] says a “consumer” means any natural person obligated or allegedly obligated to pay any debt.
So, you must be a natural person. This means that for MOST purposes if you are a business, you are not protected. There is a key exception. Harassment or abuse is something that is prohibited in the collection of consumer debts as to ANY person, and for this section (15 U.S.C. §1692d), any person INCLUDES non-consumers– businesses, and other entitles.
But the discussion of consumer does not end there. A consumer also owes or is alleged to owe a consumer debt.
So, just because you are a real person does not mean that you are entitled to protection. They must owe a consumer debt. Consumer debts are generally debts incurred for personal, family or household use. Commercial debts, tort debts, and taxes and fines are specifically excluded.
This means that most people are protected, generally for most usual kinds of debts, but not all.
Read up on What is a “Debt”? next week.
Read more about what we can do to assist you in protecting yourself from collection harassment or abuse, false or misleading statements or unfair and deceptive acts in the main section of our website.
If you have been impacted by any of the things that we have mentioned in this or any other blog post, please contact us.
Contact us by e-mail or by telephone or fax or US Mail.
You can call us: 804.673.4358
You can fax us: 804.673.4350
You can contact us by US MAIL:
Krumbein Consumer Legal Services, Inc.
1650 Willow Lawn Drive
Suite 300
Richmond, VA 23230
No related posts.