If you have never experienced contact with a debt collector, consider yourself lucky. Of course, you may give credit to your outstanding financial management skills. Congratulations are in order if that’s true. But sometimes events of our life make it impossible to keep up with our monthly bills. Your creditors may hire a debt collector to collect what you owe. Collectors may be individuals, firms or even attorneys.

Recent legislation has defined some ground rules for the ways that you can be contacted. Collection agencies can contact you by mail, in person, by phone, via fax or even by telegram. But inconvenient times and places are off limits. They may not contact you before 8 A.M. or after 9 P.M. local time. They are also not allowed to contact you at your place of employment.

Certain unfair practices have now been taken out of debt collectors’ toolboxes. Collecting more than you actually owe is not allowed (unless your state law allows extra charges). If you send them a post-dated check, they are prohibited from depositing the check early. Contacting you by postcard, which could be really embarrassing, is no longer allowed. Collectors are also barred from threatening to take your property illegally.

Any type of harassment, oppression or abuse is forbidden. This includes actions like using the telephone repeatedly to annoy a debtor. Threats of violence are definitely a no-no. Even the use of profane or obscene language is off limits for collectors. If they threaten to publish your name on a list, don’t worry. They aren’t allowed to do anything like that. The only people they can tell is the credit reporting agency.

Has a debt collector ever said something that sounded untrue? They are not allowed to collect a debt by using misleading or false statements. If they aren’t attorneys, they cannot claim to be. They cannot call themselves government representatives either. The credit bureau will not call you directly, so don’t believe anyone who says they are. Collectors are also not permitted to confuse you about papers they send–for example calling them legal documents when they really are not. They also cannot lie about how much debt you owe.

Threats of arrest or imprisonment are strictly forbidden. Seizures of property or garnishment of your wages will not happen without the due process of a lawsuit (student loans have special rules, though, so watch out with those). Threatening you with legal proceedings is against the rules if they don’t really intend to take you to court. Sending out false information or official-looking documents (when they are not) could also get the collectors into trouble.

Your best bet–if you really owe the money–is to work with the collector as much as possible. Try to send something, even if it’s not the full amount. If you think the collector has done something contrary to the law, then work up in the company’s management structure. This should get you some satisfaction, but if it doesn’t, contact both your state Attorney General and the Federal Trade Commission. In most cases, however, the fact that collectors broke the law will not change the fact that you owe a debt. You are still responsible for paying what you owe. The laws are in place to make sure that you are treated with fairness and respect.