In the current economic climate, many people are finding that they are having unwanted contact with debt collectors calling to make payment arrangements to satisfy past debts. Although many of these debts can be collected validly, some debt collection companies also try to collect on debts that have expired. Knowing how to handle collection calls for expired debts is very important to all consumers, even those that do not believe that they have any debts to be collected, because anyone can be contacted regarding a suspected debt.
Identifying Expired Debts
There is a statute of limitations on the ability to collect on a debt that typically lasts for seven years. After this amount of time has passed with no activity on the account and the creditor has not filed a lawsuit to force the debtor to pay the debt, the law states that these debts cannot be legally enforced or collected. This law was put into place to prevent debt collectors from trying to collect on debts that are so old that they cannot be validated.
Even though these debts are legally uncollectable, some unscrupulous debt collectors continue to go after debtor for these expired debts in the hopes that the person will not know their rights and will allow the debt collector to open action on the account so that the account can become valid for another seven years. If the debt collector can get the person to pay anything towards the balance of the expired debt, it can reopen the account for full legal collection efforts.
What Are My Rights?
Legally, a person is not required to pay a debt that is more than 7 years old with at least 7 years of inactivity on the account. Collectors that call to try and collect on these debts may not have all of the information available from the original creditor to tell them that the debt is expired and uncollectable, or the collector has all of this information and chooses to ignore it to boost the profits of their company. The first step is to inform the debt collector that they are attempting to collect an expired debt, inform them that you request that they do not contact you about that particular debt any longer, and inform them that they will be reported if they continue to contact you about the debt.
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