Creditor Harassment, Know Your Rights.

Credit is an integral part of most peoples daily lives, which range across from a variety of credit agreements such as, Mortgages, Unsecured Personal Loans, Credit cards and many more. Money advisors have reported a significant increase in the amount of multiple credit agreements each person owns from various financial institutions.

Annual Report

The annual report accumulated by the Central Bank in Ireland of year 2000 provided an overview of risks to
financial stability in Ireland which indicated that "the private sector credit growth has been a source of concern to the Bank for some time and that it had increased from 50% of GDP to 100% of GDP between 1994 and 2000."

This questions the suitability of the current outdated legal system in Ireland, particularly how Ireland would cope with the increased amount of consumer debtness and debt enforcement which has increased in the current credit crunch.

Irelands Outdated Laws

Irelands law has been heavily criticised when dealing with communication by creditors/owners with consumers as it does not take into account the use of methods and forms of communication such as mobile phone calls, text messages and email, and is also significantly behind in the area of the law relating to harassment.

A matter of great concern has been the failure to regulate the debt collection services at this time when many consumers are being pressurised into unsuitable and unsustainable arrangements by Debt Collection Industries.
Including the hard-sell in which advisors have pressurised people to take up payment protection insurance policys in which many consumers have been mis-sold expensive insurance in some cases borrowing at the
same interest rate to pay for that insurance.

The Consumer Protection Act 2007

The consumer Protection Act 2007, includes regulations in which persons should comply with such as Aggressive Comercial Practices which prohibits traders from inflicting harassment, coercion or exercising undue influence are prohibited under the Act. Pressurising, intimidating and taking advantage of vulnerable consumers are examples of harassment which includes threatening or abusive behaviour or language.

Examples of creditor harassment are;

• The use of official-looking documents resembling court summonses
• Presenting information to create a false or misleading impression, and to exploit the debtor’s lack of knowledge.
• Putting the debtor under undue psychological pressure.
• Contacting debtors directly while bypassing their known appointed representative
• Not promptly passing on money that has been collected
• Refusing reasonable offers of repayment
• Putting pressure on debtors to sell property, to remortgage or to raise funds by further borrowings
• Leaving phone messages with only the name of the employee of the debt collection agency and requesting a return call.
• Intimidation of the debtor by the frequency of demands which are calculated to alarm, distress or humiliate them.

Unfortunately many of the banks and financial organisations are paying little attention to the standards of the debt collecting agencies they are employing, and seem only interested in recieving the money owed to their organisation, even though they have responsibilites and regulations to comply with under the Consumer Protection Act 2007, the Data Protection Act and the Consumer Protection Code.