The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) is a Federal act
designed to help protect consumers who are being harassed, abused,
threatened, or intimidated by collection agencies, debt collectors, and
collection attorneys. The FDCPA applies to collection agencies,
creditors using false names, creditors collecting for other creditors,
collection attorneys, purchasers of old and delinquent debt,
repossession companies, and suppliers or designers of deceptive
collection letters (forms). The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act
typically excludes creditors collecting their own debts, which includes
banks and credit card companies like Visa, MasterCard, American
Express, MBNA, Chase, Citibank, etc. Currently there are 49 states that
are governed by the FDCPA.

The Fair debt Collection Practices Act allows consumers a chance to
help regulate the debt collection industry, which has been historically
abusive. Despite its abusive nature, a few debt collectors do not
violate state and federal laws, but because of the sheer volume of high
consumer debt, many debt collectors go unpunished and even unnoticed
for violating the FDCPA. Their violations often lead to consumers
paying debt that they may not have had to pay.

The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act enables consumers to receive
$1,000.00 in statutory damages, together with actual damages, plus
attorneys fees and costs. By contacting a lawyer in your state located
on our attorney directory page, he or she should listen to the
particular facts of your case and determine whether or not a debt
collector has violated the FDCPA and take your case.

Creditors collecting various kinds of debt including credit card debt,
hospital bills, phone bills, mortgages, and leases violate the FDCPA
every day, and continue to do so because many people do not know what
constitutes a violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.