Few things are more annoying than repeated debt collection calls to your cell phone. Often, these calls are made by an automatic dialer. It's not unheard of for people to get 10 or more of these robocalls per day. This is incredibly frustrating if you rely on your cell phone for work or to keep tabs on your children. The good news is that there are a couple ways to stop these annoying robocalls.
Verbally tell the collector to stop the robocalls
You should first figure out if the collection calls to your cell phone are being made by an autodialer. You can usually spot a robocall if there is a pause or click before a person comes on the line. An automated message is also a clear sign of an autodialed call. If the collection calls are robocalls, there is a powerful federal law called the Telephone Consumer Protection Act that protects you. The TCPA forbids anyone from using an autodialer to call your cell phone without your consent. In most debt collection situations, consent is given in the fine print of the terms and conditions of the credit agreement. Most credit agreements have language buried in them that gives the creditor your consent to robocall your cell phone. This consent is then passed on to the debt collector if you fall behind on your payments.
Fortunately, the TCPA gives you the right to revoke your consent to autodialed calls at any time and in any reasonable way. This includes revoking your consent verbally over the phone. All you have to do is tell the collection representative that you are revoking your consent to robocall your cell phone. Under the TCPA, they have to stop the autodialed calls immediately.
Write a letter demanding that the collection calls to your cell phone stop
Even though you can make the autodialed calls stop by verbally revoking your consent, there are two drawbacks to that approach. First, it can be difficult to prove a verbal statement. Second, the TCPA only allows you to revoke your consent to autodialed calls. The collector is free to continue calling your cell phone as long as they manually dial the calls.
Thankfully, there is another federal law that regulates debt collection calls: the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. Under the FDCPA, you have the right to stop all calls from a debt collector by writing the collector and requesting that they stop calling you. This letter doesn't have to be fancy. Just make sure to include your full name and your account number if you have it so that the collector can properly identify your file. All the letter has to say is that you want the collection calls to stop. You should list the all of the phone numbers that you no longer wish to receive calls on. If you want to continue to get collection calls on a certain phone number, you should say so. If you want to only get calls at a certain time, you should say that too. Under the FDCPA, the debt collector has to comply with these requests or face possible legal action.
In some cases, you can sue the collector to make the robocalls stop
Although not all collection calls to your cell phone are against the law, some of them are. And the penalties for illegal autodialed calls are significant. Under the TCPA, the collector must pay you between $500 and $1,500 per call for each offending robocall. The court will also issue an injunction against the collector forbidding further autodialer calls. Here's how you know if debt collection robocalls are illegal:
The collection calls were made with an autodialer. Under the TCPA, an autodialer is anything that "has the capacity to store or produce telephone numbers to be called, using a random or sequential number generator; and to dial such numbers." The Federal Communications Commission has made it clear that this definition is very broad and covers most, if not all, of the popular dialing software used by debt collectors.
As technology advances, though, this issue is becoming more complex. Some courts have said that even if an autodialer is involved, if it requires some human intervention to make the call, then the calls aren't barred by the TCPA. It's no surprise, therefore, that debt collection industry vendors are currently designing software that requires some human intervention in an effort to evade the TCPA. The FCC, however, has signaled that it doesn't approve of these efforts to exploit the spirit of the law, so future rule making may be coming.
The robocalls were made to your cell phone. The TCPA only prohibits robocalls to wireless phones. Most autodialed debt collection calls to a landline are permitted.
You've revoked your consent OR you never consented in the first place. Robocalls to your cell phone are only illegal if you didn't consent to them. As noted above, in the context of debt collection consent is typically given in the credit agreement. That consent, however, can be revoked verbally or in writing. Once you've revoked your consent, all future robocalls to your cell phone violate the TCPA and you're entitled to $500 to $1,500 for each illegal call.
It's also possible that you've never given consent for the collection calls to your cell phone. This most often happens when the collector is trying to reach the previous owner of your cell phone number. Because you never consented to any of these wrong-number calls, you can enforce your rights under the TCPA without first revoking your consent.