If you are constantly being hounded by debt collectors you may have wondered to yourself if they can contact your relatives while trying to locate you to pay a debt.  The answer to that is question is yes, debt collectors may contact your relatives when trying to collect on your debts.  Debt collectors are also allowed to call your friends and neighbors to try and locate you if you are dodging their calls or if they can not collect from you. Keep in mind that they are only allowed to contact other individuals to find out where you are living, your phone number, or where you work.

From the FTC:

• If an attorney is representing you about the debt, the debt collector must contact the attorney, rather than you. If you don’t have an attorney, a collector may contact other people – but only to find out your address, your home phone number, and where you work. Collectors usually are prohibited from contacting third parties more than once. Other than to obtain this location information about you, a debt collector generally is not permitted to discuss your debt with anyone other than you, your spouse, or your attorney.

Having debt collectors constantly harassing your friends, relatives and neighbors can be rather embarrassing and is actually the angle that these debt collectors are trying to take. They want your neighbors or relatives to get sick of the hounding calls and go over to your house and leave a note that someone is calling looking to collect on your debts. While this seems like a rather cruel way to collect on a debt the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act has not been interpreted in such a way that bars these companies from doing this.

If your relatives, friends or neighbors are receiving these nonstop calls from debt collectors there is a way that they can get them to stop.  All these people need to is just ask the debt collectors to stop contacting them and the debt collectors must respect their wishes and would be required to stop calling all of your neighbors or relatives. You may also want to make a complaint to the Better Business Bureau about their unscrupulous practices.

However, the best way to get these debt collectors to stop harassing your friends and relatives is to talk to the debt collectors yourself.  It is only when you avoid their phone calls will these debt collectors feel the need to contact relatives and try to collect on your debt.  When you actually pick up the phone and speak to these creditors you might be surprised with the options they can give you.  Many debt collectors are willing to work with the people that are in debt and offer them ways to slowly pay off their bills.

Tagged as: debt collections, debt collectors, stop debt collection