If you owe money and have fallen behind on payments and a collection agency tries to contact you, familiarize yourself with the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and your rights. The FDCPA covers all personal, family, household debts as well as money owed for automobiles, credit cards, and medical services.

If you feel that you are being harassed by a collector, then they may be violating the law which means you could sue them for a nice chunk of change! In fact, you have the right to sue a collector in a state or federal court within one year from the date the law was violated. If you win, you may recover money for the damages you suffered plus an additional amount up to $1, 000. Court costs and attorney's fees also can be recovered. A group of people also may sue a debt collector and recover money for damages up to $500, 000, or one percent of the collector's net worth, whichever is less.

There are rules that collection agencies must play by and they can not:

-Use obscene or profane language
-Repeatedly use the telephone to annoy someone
-Falsely imply that you have committed a crime
-State that you will be arrested if you do not pay your debt
-Collect any amount greater than your debt, unless your state law permits such a charge
-Deposit a postdated check prematurely
-Use a false name
-Take or threaten to take your property unless this can be done legally

To catch them in the act, be sure to keep phone records and write down as much as you can about the violation such as date, time and name of representative. Sure, you may owe a legit debt but that doesn't mean you have to be harassed and bullied over it. Read the FDCPA for the full text of the law governing third party collection of debts.