Can they call my81 yr. old mother?

[Anonymous]

I have been having a credit card company calling my 81 year old mother and telling her that I have not made a payment on theur account for a very long time and that I need to call them. Is this legal? The account has been with a Risk Management Company for about 4 months and the credit card company was sent a letter informing them that all communication about the account should be directed toward them.

[Swede]

Hey Kibbi, welcome to the board.

If this is an original creditor and not a collection agency, they may call your mother (as shitty as it is) because OC's aren't bound by the FDCPA. If they're a CA they can call her once to get location information on you but they cannot discuss the debt nor tell her to make payments. This is the section of the FDCPA regarding location information.

§ 804. Acquisition of location information [15 USC 1692b]

Any debt collector communicating with any person other than the consumer for the purpose of acquiring location information about the consumer shall --

(1) identify himself, state that he is confirming or correcting location information concerning the consumer, and, only if expressly requested, identify his employer;

(2) not state that such consumer owes any debt;

(3) not communicate with any such person more than once unless requested to do so by such person or unless the debt collector reasonably believes that the earlier response of such person is erroneous or incomplete and that such person now has correct or complete location information;

(4) not communicate by post card;

(5) not use any language or symbol on any envelope or in the contents of any communication effected by the mails or telegram that indicates that the debt collector is in the debt collection business or that the communication relates to the collection of a debt; and

(6) after the debt collector knows the consumer is represented by an attorney with regard to the subject debt and has knowledge of, or can readily ascertain, such attorney's name and address, not communicate with any person other than that attorney, unless the attorney fails to respond within a reasonable period of time to the communication from the debt collector.

PS. You only need to post your question in one forum. We're all a big happy family here and most people read all the sections.

[calawyer]

In California, under Civil Code section 1788.2, the term debt collector includes "any person who, in the

ordinary course of business, regularly, on behalf of himself or

herself or others, engages in debt collection."

I have been told that other state statutes have similar provisions. Here is a thread on the subject:

http://www.debt-consolidation-credit-repair-service.com/cgi-local/cutecast/cutecast.pl?forum=4&thread=2582