Aside from the stress of not paying your due bills, one of the main stressors is debt collection calls.
In my years of experience, I know and understood that we are not at ease when receiving a phone call from them. ( I can also attest to that because I am also a consumer)
As a collector, our goal is to clear the balance at the soonest time possible. You may get a phone call, email, or a letter for us to verify and establish the debt and it is legal. But what makes it harassment then?
Let us first define the word harassment according to citizensadvice
Harassment is unwanted behaviour that you find offensive or which makes you feel intimidated or humiliated.
When a collector calls you, they are expected to be professional and not sound rude. They also need to watch for their tone of voice and the words used as they are not allowed to make derogatory remarks from their client. In case that they curse the client along the way, the proper sanction is provided or even more termination of the said agent. It happened to a lot of folks that I know especially when I am with a 3rd party collections and the demand to force the customer's pay is high.
Here is some stuff that you can do to avoid the collections call.
Send everything in writing:
Send a letter requesting to stop communications from your creditor via certified mail and should have a return receipt. It is important to have such as it will be used to prove that you already take the first step on stopping them to reach you.
In the perfect world, once you sent it out and got the return receipt all communications will be ceased but if in case that you are still getting collections to attempt we will proceed with the next steps.
File and report to Federal Trade Commission / FTC
Get all the necessary details from phone calls received name of the creditor, the open balance, and other supplementary docs. Include the return receipt from the post office if available as well.
I believe that phone calls are recorded by your creditors too! So you may also get a copy of that. Do not record phone conversation unless it is approved by your state as some locations don't accept phone recordings of the customer.
Work with debt consolidation agencies
One of the pieces of advice that I'd love to give to our customers when I place a phone call if they are having a hard time determining what will be their financial goals. They offer plans and some non-profit organizations offer them. The good point of debt consolidation is they are the ones who will be speaking to us and offer arrangements to lower down your payments or comes up with a settlement.
Pay your debts
This is the most obvious advice, pay your debt. If you are paying it then there's no balance to be collected and no phone calls are made.
Conclussion
When you try to cease the collections please note that you still have a balance that needs to be paid. You will not be getting any calls but they will remain in your credit report until the balance got settled or cleared.