When a Debt Collector Breaks the Law

Your rights under the FDCPA and Florida’s FCCPA.

Debt collection is regulated. There are things a collector is simply not allowed to do, and when they do them, the law lets you sue and makes them pay your attorney’s fees.

That last part is the part that matters. You do not need money to bring one of these cases. Congress and the Florida Legislature both wrote fee-shifting into these statutes precisely so that people being harassed could do something about it.

Two statutes apply, and Florida’s is broader than the federal one:

• The federal FDCPA covers third-party debt collectors — the collection agency, the debt buyer, the collection law firm.
• Florida’s FCCPA says no person shall use these practices in collecting a consumer debt. That includes the original creditor — the bank, the credit union, the hospital, the car lender.

So conduct that federal law does not reach may still be illegal in Florida.

The deadlines are short — one year federally, two years under Florida law — so this is worth raising early.

Bring us the letters, the voicemails, the texts and the call logs. The review is free. (813) 231-2088.

Jump to a section

1. What these two laws actually give you
2. What a collector may not do — federal law
3. What a collector may not do — Florida law
4. The call-frequency rule
5. The 30-day dispute letter
6. If you have filed bankruptcy — two injunctions
7. What a claim is worth
8. What to do starting today

Part 1: What these two laws actually give you

Short answer: the right to make it stop, money damages, and your legal fees paid by them.

Most people assume that a collector calling six times a day is just something you endure. It is not. It is regulated conduct, and the regulation has teeth.

The federal law — FDCPA

The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act covers debt collectors: people collecting debts owed to somebody else. Collection agencies. Debt buyers who purchased your charged-off account. Law firms whose business is collections.

It generally does not cover the original creditor collecting its own debt in its own name.

The Florida law — FCCPA

Florida’s Consumer Collection Practices Act is written more broadly. Its prohibitions begin “In collecting consumer debts, no person shall…” — and a person is a person. The original creditor is covered.

That difference decides real cases. If the hospital’s own billing department, or the bank that issued the card, is the one behaving badly, the federal statute may not reach them and the Florida statute does.

Both shift fees

Under either statute you can recover your actual damages, statutory damages of up to $1,000, and court costs and a reasonable attorney’s fee. Florida also allows punitive damages where the conduct warrants it.

The law behind this: 15 U.S.C. § 1692a(6) (definition of “debt collector”); 15 U.S.C. § 1692k(a) (actual damages, additional damages not exceeding $1,000, costs and a reasonable attorney’s fee); Fla. Stat. § 559.72 (“In collecting consumer debts, no person shall…”); Fla. Stat. § 559.77(2) (actual damages, additional statutory damages not exceeding $1,000, court costs and reasonable attorney’s fees, and punitive damages and injunctive relief where warranted).

Part 2: What a collector may not do — federal law

Not an exhaustive list. The conduct that shows up in real cases.

What they did	Why it is illegal
Called before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m.	Presumed inconvenient — § 1692c(a)(1)
Kept calling after you told them, in writing, to stop	§ 1692c(c)
Called you at work after you said the employer prohibits it	§ 1692c(a)(3)
Called your mother, your neighbor, your boss and discussed the debt	§ 1692c(b)
Called repeatedly to annoy or harass	§ 1692d(5)
Used obscene language, or threatened violence	§ 1692d(1)–(2)
Threatened arrest, or to have you prosecuted	§ 1692e(4)–(5)
Threatened to garnish, sue, or seize when they had no intention or no legal right	§ 1692e(5)
Misstated the amount, or added fees the agreement never authorized	§ 1692e(2)(A), § 1692f(1)
Implied they were a lawyer, or a government agency, when they were not	§ 1692e(3), (9)
Kept collecting after you disputed the debt, without ever verifying it	§ 1692g(b)
Sued you in a county where you do not live and did not sign	§ 1692i(a)

They contacted you after you hired a lawyer. Once a collector knows you are represented, it must go through your attorney. This is one of the most common violations, and it is often the easiest to prove — because the collector’s own records show the date it learned.

The law behind this: 15 U.S.C. § 1692c (communication in connection with debt collection); § 1692d (harassment or abuse); § 1692e (false or misleading representations); § 1692f (unfair practices); § 1692g(b) (cease collection until verification); § 1692i(a) (venue — suit only where the consumer signed the contract or resides).

Part 3: What a collector may not do — Florida law

Short answer: everything above, plus more, and it applies to the original creditor too.

Florida’s list runs to nineteen prohibited practices. The ones that decide cases here:

They contacted you knowing you had a lawyer

§ 559.72(18). A separate Florida claim, on top of the federal one — and it reaches the original creditor the federal statute may not.

They called your employer

§ 559.72(4). In Florida a collector generally may not communicate with your employer before obtaining a final judgment, absent your written consent or a written acknowledgment of the debt. Not “may not tell your employer about the debt” — may not communicate with them at all.

Collectors do this constantly, because calling someone’s workplace produces payment. In Florida it is a violation before it is a tactic.

They told somebody else

§ 559.72(5). Disclosing information about your debt to a person other than you, without a legitimate business need.

They claimed a debt they knew was not legitimate

§ 559.72(9). This is the provision behind claims on debts that were already paid, already settled, already discharged in bankruptcy, or that were never yours. It requires knowledge — but a collector who has been told, in writing, with proof, and keeps collecting anyway, has a knowledge problem.

They called often enough to harass

§ 559.72(7). Communication “with such frequency as can reasonably be expected to harass.”

They pretended to be law enforcement

§ 559.72(1). Rarer, and when it happens it is not subtle.

They threatened something only a court can do

§ 559.72(10). Separately from impersonating an officer, Florida prohibits a communication that simulates legal or judicial process, or that gives the appearance of being authorized, issued or approved by a government or a government agency, when it is not.

A collector who tells you they will have you arrested is claiming an authority they do not have. Deciding whether to charge someone is the State Attorney’s job, not a creditor’s.

The threat is the violation. Whether or not anyone is ever arrested, whether or not a report is ever filed. It is one of the most effective things a collector can say to a person who does not know the law, which is exactly why the statute reaches it.

The law behind this: Fla. Stat. § 559.72(1), (4), (5), (7), (9), (10), (18); Fla. Stat. § 559.77 (civil remedies).

Part 4: The call-frequency rule

Short answer: more than seven calls in seven days about the same debt is presumed to be harassment. So is any call within seven days of actually speaking to you.

Since 2021 there has been a federal rule putting numbers on what “repeatedly” and “harass” mean. Almost nobody knows it exists, and it is the easiest violation in this entire page to document, because it is arithmetic.

A collector is presumed to violate the harassment prohibition if it:

• places more than seven calls within seven consecutive days about a particular debt, or
• calls again within seven days after having a telephone conversation with you about that debt.

The presumption can be rebutted, and it counts calls per debt rather than per person. But if you have a phone log showing eleven calls in a week, you are not arguing about whether it felt like harassment. You are counting.

The same rule lets you shut off a channel. Tell a collector not to email you, or not to text you, or not to call a particular number, and continuing to use it is a violation.

Keep your call log. Do not delete the voicemails. On an iPhone, Settings → Phone → Call History; most Android phones keep 500 entries. Screenshot it before it rolls over.

The law behind this: 12 C.F.R. § 1006.14(b)(2)(i) (presumption of violation — more than seven calls in seven consecutive days, or a call within seven consecutive days after a telephone conversation about the debt); § 1006.14(h) (prohibited communication media after a request to stop); 15 U.S.C. § 1692d(5).

Part 5: The 30-day dispute letter

Short answer: the single most useful thing you can do, it is free, and it takes ten minutes.

Within five days of first contacting you, a collector must send written notice stating the amount of the debt, who the creditor is, and that you have 30 days to dispute it.

Here is what most people never learn: if you dispute the debt in writing within that 30-day window, the collector must stop collecting until it obtains verification and mails it to you.

Not “should.” Must. Collection stops.

Three things follow from that:

1. It stops the calls immediately, without a lawyer, without a filing fee.
2. It tests whether they have anything. Debt buyers frequently cannot produce verification, because they bought a spreadsheet, not a file. Some simply close the account.
3. It creates the record. A collector who keeps collecting after a written dispute has committed a violation with a date on it.

Send it in writing. Keep a copy. Send it certified mail, return receipt. A phone call does not do this, and a collector will not remind you that writing is what triggers the obligation.

The law behind this: 15 U.S.C. § 1692g(a) (written notice within five days of the initial communication, stating the amount, the creditor, and the 30-day dispute right); § 1692g(b) (on a written dispute within 30 days, the collector shall cease collection until it obtains verification and mails it to the consumer).

Part 6: If you have filed bankruptcy — two injunctions

Short answer: one protection starts the day you file, a second one takes over when you get your discharge, and creditors violate the second one constantly.

Almost everyone has heard that filing stops collection. Far fewer people know there are two separate court orders doing that work, at two different stages, under two different sections of the Bankruptcy Code — and that the remedies are not the same.

	The automatic stay	The discharge injunction
Starts	The moment you file	When your discharge is entered
Lasts	Until your case closes or the court lifts it	Forever, on every discharged debt
The law	11 U.S.C. § 362(a)	11 U.S.C. § 524(a)(2)
If they violate it	§ 362(k) — you shall recover actual damages including attorney’s fees, and may recover punitive damages	Civil contempt under § 105(a)
The standard	Willful — they knew about the case and acted anyway	Objective — no fair ground of doubt that the order barred what they did

While your case is open: the automatic stay

Filing triggers the stay immediately, by operation of federal law. No hearing, no order, no waiting. Every collection call, letter, lawsuit, garnishment and repossession has to stop.

Creditors violate it anyway. Sometimes through genuine administrative lag, sometimes because a collection agency was never told, and sometimes deliberately. When the violation is willful — they knew about the bankruptcy and acted anyway — the Code says an injured individual shall recover actual damages including costs and attorney’s fees, and may recover punitive damages in appropriate circumstances.

“Shall.” Not “may.”

A bankruptcy judge in this district, adopting a framework from an earlier Alabama decision, has used a benchmark of $100 in actual damages per violating telephone call, awarding $5,000 in actual and $10,000 in punitive damages against a creditor that made roughly fifty post-filing calls — including calls to the debtor’s workplace and emergency contacts. Two honest caveats about that decision: the creditor never appeared, and the court accepted the debtor’s proffered evidence. It is a published decision on how this conduct gets measured, not a contested verdict.

After your discharge: the discharge injunction

This is the one people do not know about, and it is where the real damage happens.

When your discharge is entered, the stay ends — and a permanent injunction replaces it. Your discharged debts are gone, and no creditor may ever again take any act to collect them. Not a call, not a letter, not a lawsuit, and not a garnishment.

A creditor that keeps collecting after discharge can be held in civil contempt. Since 2019 the test has been objective: contempt is appropriate where there is no fair ground of doubt that the discharge order barred what the creditor did. A creditor’s sincere belief that it was entitled to collect does not save it if that belief was unreasonable.

And there is a second obligation that catches creditors out. If a garnishment or wage deduction was already running when you filed, it is not enough for the creditor to stop pushing. The burden is on the creditor to take affirmative action to undo what it set in motion — to rescind the summons. A wage deduction summons keeps working until somebody withdraws it. Silence is not compliance.

When a creditor calls the police

Short answer: your bankruptcy does not stop a genuine criminal prosecution. It does stop a creditor from using one to collect.

The Code says the automatic stay does not apply to the commencement or continuation of a criminal action against you. Read quickly, that looks like a door a creditor can walk through — report you to the police, let the State do the collecting.

It is not. The exception protects the State’s prosecution. It does not protect the creditor. A creditor who instigates a criminal complaint as a way of getting paid is still performing an act to collect a debt, and is still bound by the stay.

Courts look at the sequence rather than the label. What did the creditor know? Were there agreements in place to pay the debt through the bankruptcy? Did the criminal referral appear only after money stopped arriving?

Where this comes up most is leased and rent-to-own goods — furniture, electronics, appliances — because failing to return leased property is a crime in Florida. A person who no longer has the goods, and who says so honestly under oath at the meeting of creditors, can find that honesty turned into leverage.

If you are being threatened with arrest over a debt that is in your bankruptcy, that is not an ordinary collection dispute, and it should not wait. (813) 231-2088.

The law behind this: 11 U.S.C. § 362(b)(1) (criminal actions excepted from the stay); In re Byrd, 256 B.R. 246, 248 (Bankr. E.D.N.C. 2000) (the exception protects the State’s prosecution, not a creditor using a criminal complaint to collect); Fla. Stat. § 559.72(10).

What that can be worth: a judgment in this district

Every case is different and a prospective client may not obtain the same or similar results.

Our client received her Chapter 7 discharge in November 2022. Two months later — after the creditor had been given repeated notice of her bankruptcy — a consumer finance company served a wage deduction summons on her employer, and her paychecks began to be withheld. It rescinded the summons only after repeated demands from our office.

What followed is why this matters. She could not pay her rent. Late fees accumulated. She was evicted from the apartment where she had lived for three years. To be approved for a new one she had to pay $3,000 for a cosigner, and her rent went from $1,500 to $2,400 a month.

The United States Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Florida, Tampa Division, granted summary judgment on liability, tried the damages, and entered final judgment:

Attorney’s fees and costs at summary judgment	$19,359.48
Additional actual damages — seven months of the $900 rent differential, plus the $3,000 cosigner fee	$9,300.00
Punitive damages	$8,000.00
Supplemental attorney’s fees through trial	$8,000.00
Final judgment	$44,659.48

Final judgment entered March 14, 2026. No appeal was taken, and the judgment has been paid in full. (Adv. Pro. No. 8:23-ap-00054.)

Two things are worth drawing out of those numbers.

More than $27,000 of that judgment is attorney’s fees and costs — paid by the creditor, not by our client. That is the whole reason a case like this can be brought by someone whose wages were being taken.

And the actual damages were countable. Not “emotional distress” in the abstract — a rent differential, times seven months, plus a cosigner fee. Courts award what you can prove. Which is why the record matters more than the outrage.

If a creditor has kept collecting after your discharge, call us. (813) 231-2088.

The law behind this: 11 U.S.C. § 362(a) (the automatic stay); 11 U.S.C. § 362(k)(1) (“An individual injured by any willful violation of a stay provided by this section shall recover actual damages, including costs and attorneys’ fees, and, in appropriate circumstances, may recover punitive damages.”); 11 U.S.C. § 524(a)(2) (the discharge operates as an injunction against any act to collect a discharged debt); 11 U.S.C. § 105(a) (authority to issue any order necessary to carry out the Code — the basis for contempt sanctions enforcing a discharge); Taggart v. Lorenzen, 139 S. Ct. 1795 (2019) (civil contempt is appropriate where there is no fair ground of doubt that the discharge order barred the creditor’s conduct); In re McLean, 794 F.3d 1313 (11th Cir. 2015) (compensatory sanctions under § 105(a) for actual damages from a discharge injunction violation); In re Jove Engineering, 92 F.3d 1539 (11th Cir. 1996); In re White, 410 B.R. 322 (Bankr. M.D. Fla. 2009).

Part 7: What a claim is worth

Plainly, because the honest answer is more useful than an inflated one.

Statutory damages are capped at $1,000 per statute. Not per call. If your only injury is annoyance, the realistic recovery is that, under each statute that applies.

Actual damages are where the value is — lost wages if the workplace calls cost you time or a job, the cost of a phone number you had to change, medical expenses if the harassment made you ill, and in Florida, emotional distress is compensable in these cases.

The fees are the point. Both statutes make the collector pay your attorney’s fee if you win. That is why you can bring one of these cases with no money, and it is why collectors settle them.

Nothing here is a prediction about your case. What a claim is worth depends on what they did, how much of it you can prove, and who they are.

The deadlines are short

Statute	Time to sue
FDCPA — federal	one year from the violation
FCCPA — Florida	two years from the violation

Each violation generally has its own date, so an ongoing pattern is not necessarily lost because it started a while ago — but the older conduct falls away first. This is not a claim to sit on.

The law behind this: 15 U.S.C. § 1692k(a)(2)(A), (a)(3), (d); Fla. Stat. § 559.77(2), (4).

Part 8: What to do starting today

1. Start writing it down. Date, time, number that called, who they said they were, what they said. A phone note is fine. Contemporaneous beats comprehensive.
2. Do not delete anything — voicemails, texts, emails, letters, envelopes. Screenshot your call log before it rolls over.
3. Send the written dispute if you are inside the 30 days. Certified mail, return receipt, keep a copy.
4. Tell them, in writing, to stop if you want the calls to end, and note the date you sent it. Everything after that date is on a different footing.
5. If you have a lawyer, tell them so — and note the date. Contact after that is a violation under both statutes.
6. Do not admit the debt or make a payment on an old account to make it stop. It will not, and on a time-barred debt a signature can revive it. More on that here.
7. Bring us what you have. Even if you think it is not much.

(813) 231-2088 — the consultation is free, and there is no fee to you in these cases unless we recover.

About this article

Written by Alan Dexter Borden, a Florida consumer bankruptcy and consumer rights attorney admitted to The Florida Bar in 2008 and admitted in all three of Florida’s federal districts.

Last reviewed: September 3, 2026.

This article is general information about Florida and federal law, not legal advice about your situation. Every case is different, and the deadlines and dollar figures described here can change. Reading this does not create an attorney-client relationship.