Washington state Collection laws

[DYLAN150]

I copied this below from the Washington state Attorney General's web page.

When Contacting Other People (collection agencies)

If you have an attorney, the law prohibits a collection agency from contacting anyone other than your attorney. If you do not have an attorney, the agency can contact other people only to find out where you live or work. The collector cannot tell these people that you owe money. In most cases, the collection agency can contact another person only once. These same rules apply to contact with your employer.

Question: If they already know where I live or work can they still call my neighbor to relay a message to me?

[bcohen]

Not legally, but sometimes collection agencies "throw a block party", i.e. they call a debtor's neighbors in order to intimidate the person into paying or returning their calls.

[Bell30656]

I respectfully disagree with bcohen on this. I think that they can call the neighbors doing "attempt to locate" calls if the debtor is not answering or returning the calls. They have tried to reach you at where you told them that you live and work but didn't reach you. How are they to know you still work or live there if you do not speak to them? And yes, it is to intimidate you into paying the debt. It is after all the goal of the debt collector to force you to honor the terms you agreed to in the contract. If you want to keep them from calling others, simply follow this script exactly. Remember, no matter what the collector says, you gain nothing from deviating from the script.

Verify that you are indeed the person they are trying to reach by confirming name or last four. Then tell the caller that you will not discuss financial matters over the phone. Bid them farewell and hang up the telephone. They have made contact with you and have no reason to make "attempt to locate" calls. Since you live in Washington, you are not allowed to record the calls without the permission of everyone on the call. But in my state, Georgia... I always threw in a mention that I recorded all telephone calls and remaining on the line was consent to recording.

[GoingDown]

Yes, follow the script above, and then follow it up with a cease and desist communications letter in the mail to them. It will almost always get them to stop calling you and your neighbors, and yes, many times even original creditors will honor them voluntarily.