A debt collector can call you only between 8:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. in your local time, and under federal Regulation F they are presumed to be harassing you if they place more than seven calls about a single debt within any seven consecutive days. Once they actually reach you and speak with you about a debt, they have to wait at least a week before calling again about that same debt. And you can shut off collector calls entirely by sending a written notice telling them to stop.
The Hours Collectors Can Call
The 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. window is measured in your time zone, not the collector’s. A call outside that window is treated as contact at an inconvenient time, which the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act prohibits unless you gave the collector permission in advance or a court authorized the contact.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S.C. 1692c – Communication in Connection With Debt Collection
Calls to your workplace have a separate rule. A collector cannot call you at work if they know, or have reason to know, that your employer prohibits those calls.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 1692c – Communication in Connection With Debt Collection You don’t need a written company policy to invoke this. Telling the collector on the phone that your employer doesn’t allow the calls is enough to put them on notice, and further calls to your job after that become a violation.
How Often They Can Call
Regulation F sets the frequency limit. A collector who calls you more than seven times about a particular debt in seven consecutive days is presumed to be violating the law. And once the collector has an actual telephone conversation with you about a specific debt, a fresh seven-day quiet period begins before they can call you again about that same debt.3Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. When and How Often Can a Debt Collector Call Me on the Phone?
Two things about that cap catch people off guard. First, it runs per debt, not per person. If the same agency holds three of your accounts, the per-debt math can theoretically permit up to seven calls a week on each. Even so, a pattern of calling that is clearly meant to annoy or harass can still violate the law regardless of whether the numerical cap was respected on any single debt. Second, some accounts get grouped: student loan debts are sometimes treated as a single debt for purposes of the call cap.3Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. When and How Often Can a Debt Collector Call Me on the Phone?
Who Has to Follow These Rules
The FDCPA applies to third-party debt collectors: companies or people whose main business is collecting debts owed to someone else, or who regularly collect on behalf of other creditors. The original company you owed money to, collecting under its own name, is not covered by the federal act. One exception matters: if an original creditor uses a different name to make it look like a third party is collecting, the FDCPA treats that creditor as a debt collector.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 1692a – Definitions
Some states extend similar protections to original creditors under their own debt collection laws, so the rules above may still apply to a first-party caller depending on where you live. If you aren’t sure who is calling, ask, and check the written validation notice the collector is required to send within five days of first contacting you, which identifies who currently holds the debt.
What Collectors Are Not Allowed to Do on the Phone
The FDCPA broadly prohibits conduct meant to harass, oppress, or abuse you. Federal law specifically names several telephone tactics as harassment:
- Threatening to harm you, your reputation, or your property.
- Using obscene or abusive language on the call.
- Repeatedly or continuously causing your phone to ring with the intent to annoy or harass.
- Placing calls without meaningfully identifying who is calling.
Those are listed directly in the statute.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 1692d – Harassment or Abuse Collectors also can’t lie to you on a call. They cannot misrepresent the amount you owe, falsely imply you’ve committed a crime, or threaten legal action they can’t legally take or don’t actually intend to take.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 1692e – False or Misleading Representations
Calls to other people in your life have their own rules. A collector may contact a family member, neighbor, or coworker only to get your contact or location information, and only once per person unless that person asks for a callback or the collector reasonably believes the earlier information was wrong or incomplete. On those calls the collector must identify themselves by name, cannot say you owe a debt, and cannot even reveal that they work for a collection agency unless asked directly.7GovInfo. 15 U.S.C. 1692b – Acquisition of Location Information Outside those narrow location calls, a collector generally can’t discuss your debt with anyone other than you, your attorney, or a credit reporting agency.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S.C. 1692c – Communication in Connection With Debt Collection
How to Stop the Calls
You can end phone contact with a collector by sending them a written notice telling them to stop. A verbal request during a call isn’t enough on its own; the collector’s legal duty to stop is triggered when they receive the notice in writing.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S.C. 1692c – Communication in Connection With Debt Collection Certified mail with a return receipt gives you proof of delivery if the calls don’t stop.
After the collector gets your letter, they must cut off communication about the debt except for three limited purposes: to confirm that their collection efforts are ending, to tell you that the collector or original creditor may pursue an ordinary legal remedy, or to notify you that a specific action (such as a lawsuit) is going to be taken.8Federal Trade Commission. Fair Debt Collection Practices Act Text
One caution before you send the letter: it stops the phone calls, but it does not erase the debt. The collector or original creditor can still sue you, report the debt to credit bureaus, or sell it to another collector, who would then need to send you a fresh validation notice before making contact. Cutting off communication can even make a lawsuit more likely, because the collector loses the ability to negotiate a payment plan with you. If you might want to settle, think about that trade-off first.
What to Do if a Collector Broke the Rules
If a collector violated the FDCPA, you can sue in federal or state court. A court may award:
- Actual damages for real harm you suffered, such as emotional distress or lost wages traceable to the collector’s conduct.
- Statutory damages up to $1,000 per lawsuit even without proof of specific financial harm. In a class action, the cap is the lesser of $500,000 or one percent of the collector’s net worth.
- Attorney’s fees and court costs if you win, which the collector typically pays.
The $1,000 statutory ceiling applies per lawsuit, not per violation, so several violations in the same case still top out at $1,000 in statutory damages.9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 1692k – Civil Liability
You can also file a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Companies generally respond within 15 days, with some taking up to 60 days for a final response.10Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Learn How the Complaint Process Works A CFPB complaint doesn’t produce damages for you, but it creates a regulatory record and can prompt the agency to investigate.
If you want evidence for either route, recording your calls with the collector is worth considering, with a caveat. Federal law lets you record a call as long as at least one party (you) consents. Roughly a dozen states require every party on the call to consent. When you and the collector are in different states, the stricter rule generally controls. Check your state’s recording law before you start; breaking it can expose you to liability even when the collector was the one violating the FDCPA.