Tired of the Debt Calls and Texts? You Have More Rights Than You Think.
If a debt collector calls you before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m., threatens to have you arrested, or tells you things that are not true, that collector has probably broken federal law. The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (15 U.S.C. § 1692 et seq.) sets firm rules for third-party debt collectors, and breaking those rules costs them. A consumer can recover statutory damages of up to $1,000, plus any actual damages, plus attorney’s fees.
Here is what the FDCPA actually requires, how it works in Georgia, and what you can do when a collector crosses the line.
First, See If the Law Even Covers This Collector
The FDCPA reaches “debt collectors,” meaning people or companies that regularly collect debts owed to someone else. Collection agencies, debt buyers, and attorneys who collect debts for their clients all fall under it.
Original creditors collecting their own debts do not. If your own bank calls you about your own credit card, the FDCPA does not apply to that call. It is governed by the agreement you signed. But if the bank sells that debt to a collection agency and the agency starts calling, the FDCPA now applies to every one of those calls.
Georgia has no separate state debt collection statute layered on top of the federal law, which some other states do have. In Georgia, your main tool against a third-party collector is the FDCPA itself, and you can enforce it in either federal or state court. The Georgia Fair Business Practices Act (O.C.G.A. § 10-1-390 et seq.) can reach some collection conduct, but it does not replace the FDCPA.
Know What a Collector Is Not Allowed to Do
The prohibitions are specific, not vague. A collector cannot do any of the following.
- Contact you at the wrong time or place. Calls before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. in your local time are off limits (15 U.S.C. § 1692c(a)(1)). So are calls to your workplace once the collector knows your employer does not allow them.
- Keep contacting you after you tell them in writing to stop. Once you send a written cease-and-desist letter, the collector has to stop, with two narrow exceptions. They may contact you once to confirm they are ending collection, and they may tell you about a specific step they are taking, such as filing suit. Any other contact after that letter is a violation.
- Drag third parties into it. A collector can reach out to other people only to find you, and only for your name, address, and phone number. They cannot discuss the debt, and they generally cannot contact the same person more than once. Calling your relatives or coworkers to shame you into paying violates § 1692c.
- Lie to you. Section 1692e is where the statute has its teeth. A collector cannot misstate the amount you owe, pose as an attorney or a government official, threaten legal action it has no intention of taking, claim you will be arrested for not paying, or report false information to the credit bureaus. Consumer debt is not a crime in this country, and no one goes to jail over an unpaid credit card.
- Use unfair or abusive tactics. Collecting more than the agreement or the law allows, cashing a post-dated check early, and mailing you a postcard that reveals your debt to anyone who sees it are all barred under § 1692f.
What a Collector Must Put in Writing for You
Within five days of first contacting you, a collector has to send a written validation notice. It must state the amount of the debt, name the creditor, tell you that you have 30 days to dispute the debt in writing, and tell you that if you do dispute it in writing the collector will send you verification (15 U.S.C. § 1692g). This is your validation right, and you should use it.
If you send a written dispute within that 30-day window, the collector has to stop collecting until it gives you verification, meaning a copy of a judgment or a statement from the original creditor showing what is owed and how the number was reached. Continuing to collect while your written dispute sits unanswered is a violation.
Most collectors who break the FDCPA break it in one of three ways. They ignore or botch a validation request, they keep collecting after a cease-and-desist letter, or they make false statements about what will happen if you do not pay. These are not technical slip-ups. They are patterns, and the courts and the federal watchdog, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”), have seen plenty of them.
Your Options If a Collector Breaks the Rules
You have one year from the date of the violation to bring a private FDCPA claim (15 U.S.C. § 1692k(d)). Do not sit on it. The statute lets you recover three things.
- Statutory damages of up to $1,000 per lawsuit. This is per case, not per phone call. You do not have to prove you were harmed to collect it. The violation itself is enough.
- Actual damages. Emotional distress, lost wages, and any concrete harm the collector’s conduct caused you. These can climb when the conduct was egregious or led to a real consequence, such as losing a job or being denied credit over false reporting.
- Attorney’s fees and costs. You pay your attorney’s fees up front, and if you win, the FDCPA lets you recover the reasonable fees and the costs you put into the case from the collector (15 U.S.C. § 1692k(a)(3)). A strong case does not have to come out of your own pocket in the end.
Whether or not you sue, file a complaint with the CFPB at consumerfinance.gov. It is free, it takes about fifteen minutes, and it puts the conduct on the record. The CFPB can act against collectors who show a pattern of violations, and your complaint becomes part of that picture.
Medical Bills, Student Loans, and Your Paycheck
The FDCPA applies to medical debt, which is the single largest category of third-party collection in the country. If a hospital or medical group hands your account to a collection agency, that agency is covered.
Student loans are more mixed. Federal student loans collected by the Department of Education or its direct servicers fall outside the FDCPA, because government agencies are excluded. Private student loans placed with third-party collectors are covered.
One point specific to Georgia. Our wage garnishment law (O.C.G.A. § 18-4-1 et seq.) limits how much of your pay a creditor with a judgment can take. Federal law caps garnishment at 25% of your disposable weekly earnings, or the amount by which those earnings exceed 30 times the federal minimum wage, whichever is less. Georgia applies the same limit federal law sets. And a collector that does not yet have a judgment cannot garnish your wages at all, so a threat to garnish your wages now, before any judgment exists is very likely an FDCPA violation.
Last reviewed July 2026 by Victoria Helgesen, State Bar of Georgia #630432.
