If you have not paid your bills on time, then it is possible that a debt collector can contact you. Now the question is: who is a debt collector? A debt collector is a person who is responsible for collecting the debts from people that they owe to others. But there are certain rules and regulations under which the debt collector can contact a person, asking for the money.

Who are the creditors?

The people you owe money to are called creditors. If you do not end up paying their money back, they can take legal action against you. But as per the laws of Hong Kong, creditors cannot indulge in harassment in the process of their debt collection. Any practice that is done with the intention of humiliating or threatening you is called harassment. Hence, every consumer who is either a money borrower or lender must be aware of laws that are legalized for debt collection so that he or she can protect themselves from abusive practices. There are very stringent laws catering to debt collection in Hong Kong in order to protect its customers.

The following practices of debt collection are referred to as harassment as per Hong Kong laws, and therefore Hong Kong debt collector cannot indulge in any of them:

• Contacting you repeatedly throughout the day, along with posing a threat of losing life and property, is not ethical.
• Any kind of physical or verbal threat
• Humiliating or mocking you publicly to inculcate shame and guilt
• Causing you any physical damage
• Falsely claiming about a legal action to be taken against you
• Creating psychological pressure by sending in other people to talk about your debts.

What does a debt collector do?

Debt collectors mainly work for the following:

• Lawyers who are responsible for collecting debts on a regular basis
• various collection interventions
• companies that purchase aberrant debts

Learning the laws:

Under the FDCPA, also known as the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Federal Trade Commission forbids any use of abusive or inappropriate language by the debt collector when he is out to collect recovery money from people.

Debts that come under the following categories:

A debt collector’s basic aim is to collect debts like

• Any personal or household debt
• A medical bill
• Debts for a vehicle loan

When will a debt collector contact you?

It is a basic rule that no debt collector will contact the person at inappropriate times. He won’t come before eight o’clock in the morning or after nine at night. He can only visit you during adequate working hours to collect the debt money. Any debt collector can also contact you via email, telephone, or text message regarding the collection of debt. But he can only do so under a certain limit, so that any type of abusive behavior is not allowed.

As per the laws of the government, when a debt collector contacts a person, he should disclose his identity. Also, he cannot threaten or harass the person for the collection of debts.