Telephone calls have no legal weight since there is no record of what was said on a call. Knowing this, credit card debt collectors will say threatening things on the phone and get away with telling their lies. That is why consumer debt collectors choose to use the phone over mail. Debt collectors lose their power when communications are reduced to writing.

Written communications from and to a credit card debt collector are what matter in court. If a consumer is writing to a debt collector it should always be certified return receipt requested.

It is commonly accepted that all credit card debt collectors lie on the telephone. Here are some of the lies they tell over the telephone:

1. They scare you by claiming that a lawsuit has been filed against you in your local court and that a complaint is on its way.

2. They threaten to have you arrested. (Debts are civil, not criminal.)

3. They tell you you may be arrested, knowing no one can be arrested for a civil matter.

4. They threaten to have your wages garnished.

5. They threaten to have your bank account seized.

The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act is violated by each of these threats.

These threats are attempts to get you to confirm that the debt is yours. The credit card debt collector wants to confirm the credit card number in question and get other personal information. They want to know your Social Security number, the phone number of your work place and even information about your bank account. The Credit Card Debt Survival Guide says that you should react by disputing the debt and denying it over the phone to the credit card debt collector. Remember that the person on the other end of the line unknown to you. Tell them you do not share personal information over the phone with people unknown to you and then hang up.

Curiosity should be the only reason for taking one of these calls. If a credit card debt collector calls out of the cold, let them tell you what debt they are calling about, then tell them you have received no written notice from them about the debt and hang up.

The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act allows the consumer to instruct the debt collector in writing to stop all collection calls. After that each call is a violation of the law, and subject to a $1000 penalty. Consumers should keep logs of the phone calls and contact a consumer rights attorney, who may agree to sue the credit card debt collector over these violations on a contingency fee basis.

Matt Highlander learned how to frustrate credit card debt collectors and collection attorneys. If you cannot afford to pay, read his Credit Card Debt Survival Guide