When can debt collectors contact my family?

One of the strongest provisions under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act is the prohibition against debt collectors contacting people other than the debtor.  This is for good reason.  When debt collectors inform friends of family of a debt and ask for them to relay a message to the debtor, it can create tremendous pressure to pay just to make the calls stop.  This leads to people overpaying or even paying debts they don’t owe just have the calls to family stopped.

Even Congress noted this problem when passing the law:

[I]t prohibits disclosing the consumer’s personal affairs to third persons. Other than to obtain location information, a debt collector may not contact third persons such as a consumer’s friends, neighbors, relatives or employer. Such contacts are not legitimate collection practices and result in serious invasions of privacy, as well as loss of jobs.

Locating Information Exception

There is an exception to the general third party contact prohibition that debt collectors use and often misuse.  Debt collectors can contact third parties for locating information if it does not already have it.  However, even when doing this, it is prohibited from disclosing debt information and is most certainly prohibited from asking the friend or family member to relay a message to the debtor.  The most recent abuse of the exception is when debt collectors contact third parties under the guise of locating information when they already have the debtor’s contact information — but maybe its not debtor’s main line of contact.  This is still illegal.  Once a debt collector can locate a debtor, even by just a home address, it cannot continue to contact third parties.

Contact Us If Debt Collectors Are Calling Your Friends or Family

If you have debt collectors calling your friends and family over a debt, then have them write down the phone number and any notes they can remember about the call.  Of course, if the debt collector leaves a message, have them send it over to you.  These pieces of information are helpful when trying to put the pieces together for a claim under the FDCPA.