If you are currently dealing with more debt than you can comfortably handle, take the situation very seriously. If you don't pay your debts on time, creditors are likely to report your delinquencies to one or more credit bureaus, thus harming your credit record. Creditors may also file a lawsuit against you seeking a judgment (i.e., a determination by a court that you owe a certain amount) or seeking permission to "attach" (that is, seize) property you own (such as bank accounts or wages). Your creditor may also seek to contact you directly and ask you to pay. Although being contacted by your creditors or their debt collectors can be frightening, you can use the law to protect yourself.
Federal and state laws place restrictions on what debt collectors can say to you and when and how they can contact you. Under the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), a debt collector is someone, other than a creditor or its employees, who regularly collects consumer debts on behalf of creditors. This federal law does not cover creditors per se (unless the creditor uses a false name in attempting to collect the debt), but your state laws may govern them. Thus, retailers who attempt to collect unpaid debts would not be regulated by the FDCPA, but they may be covered by your state's law.
A debt collector may contact you by mail, in person, or by telephone or telegram, but he or she is not allowed to contact you at times the debt collector knows are inconvenient for you, unless you agree (or a court specifically grants permission). Unless a debt collector has information to the contrary, he or she must assume that times before 8:00 A.M. or after 9:00 P.M. are not convenient. Also, a debt collector is not permitted to contact you at work if he or she knows or has reason to know that your employer forbids employees from being contacted by collectors at the workplace. You can tell the debt collector what times and places are inconvenient for you to receive calls.
Under the FDCPA, there are a couple of ways you can get collectors to stop contacting you all together. A debt collector is forbidden from contacting you if he or she knows that a lawyer represents you in connection with the debt. You can also stop a debt collector from contacting you by notifying the collector in writing. After that, attempts at contacting you must stop. There are, of course, exceptions to this, for example, the debt collector may contact you to tell you that there will be no more contact or that some specific legal action will be taken. However, debt collectors may state this only if they actually plan to take such action.
Debt collectors must also stop trying to contact you if you notify them, by mail, within 30 days after they send you notice, that you dispute all or part of the debt or that you are requesting the name and address of the original creditor. Debt collectors are permitted to begin collection activities again if they are able to verify the debt by sending you proof of the debt, such as a copy of the bill, or the information you requested about the original creditor.
A debt collector may contact any person to locate you. However, in doing so, the collector usually may not talk to anyone more than once or refer to the debt. If debt collectors use the mail to contact you or another person, they may not send letters in envelopes identifying themselves as bill collectors.
Prohibited Techniques
A debt collector may not harass, oppress, or abuse you. For example, a debt collector may not use threats of violence to harm you, your property, or your reputation; use obscene or profane language; or repeatedly use the telephone to annoy you. A debt collector further may not use false, deceptive, or misleading statements when trying to collect a debt. For example, a debt collector may not misrepresent the amount of the debt or falsely imply that the debt collector is a lawyer. A debt collector also may not use unfair means to collect a debt. In this context, "unfair" means collecting interest or any fee, charge, or expense unless that amount is authorized by agreement or law.
If Debt Collectors Break the Law
There are several steps you can take if you think a debt collector is breaking the law. If a creditor is making the collection effort, check the law with the consumer protection office of your state or your state attorney general's office and write that office a letter detailing your complaint (with a copy to the offending creditor). If the collection effort is being undertaken by an independent debt collector, you may want to contact the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) at www.ftc.gov. The FTC has been active in pursuing FDCPA violators and may occasionally fine them heavily or even put them out of business.
In addition, if debt collectors violate the FDCPA, you may sue them in a state or federal court. However, you may do so only within one year from the date they violated the law. If you believe that you have been the victim of unfair debt collection harassment, you should consider consulting your attorney.
The Best Situation for Your Child
If you are a divorced parent, you may have first-hand experience with how trying it can be to negotiate a child custody order. Even after you have an agreement in place, you may be faced with a stark reality: life doesn't stand still. Have you gotten a new job out of state? Has your former spouse remarried? Lost a job? What do these life changes mean to your child's custody? Well, don't worry too much; the legal system has established a method to address life changes and their impacts on custody orders.
Legally, child custody is the right and duty to care for a minor child on a day-to-day basis and to make major decisions about the child. In sole custody arrangements, one parent takes care of the child most of the time and makes major decisions about the child. In joint custody arrangements, both parents share in making major decisions, and both also might spend substantial amounts of time with the child. Different states may use different terms (e.g., timeshare, possession, or conservatorship) to refer to custody. Some states refer to time spent with children as "physical custody" and to decision-making authority as "legal custody." A court need not award physical custody and legal custody the same way. For example, a court might award physical custody to one parent (with the other receiving visitation rights) but decide that decision-making authority (Le., legal custody) is to be shared jointly by both parents.
If the parents cannot agree on a custody arrangement for their child, the court decides custody according to the best interest of the child. Determining the best interest of the child involves consideration of many factors, which may include the health and sex of the child, the primary caregiver prior to the divorce, parenting skills and willingness to care for the child, the emotional ties between child and parent, willingness to facilitate visitation by the other parent, and each parent's moral fitness.
Like most things in the world, child custody orders aren't set in stone
A court can change child custody arrangements to meet the changing needs of the child and to respond to changes in the parents' lives. Because courts favor stability for children and do not want to encourage contentious litigation, a parent seeking to change a custody arrangement must show two things. First, that conditions have changed substantially, and usually unpredictably, since the last custody order. The parent must also show that changing the custody arrangement would be better for the child. If, for example, a move out of state to follow a better job for a parent would require the child to attend a school that is far below the quality of that child's current school and would make regular visitation with the other parent nearly impossible, a court may determine this to be a change that would not be better for the child. Of course, such a decision parent to show that not changing the custody arrangements would be harmful to the child.
If you are in such a situation, you should talk to your attorney to determine the correct steps to take and your chances of success with each. Like most things in the world, child custody orders certainly aren't set in stone, so if your current custody order no longer seems right for your child, it makes sense to see what can be done to improve it.