If you are receiving phone calls in an attempt to collect a debt that you legitimately do not owe, the following cease and desist letter template may be useful in your efforts to clear up the confusion and stop the collection calls. If you are overwhelmed with debt, consider consulting an experienced debt reduction or bankruptcy attorney.

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Your Rights Under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act

The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) is a federal law that protects consumers from abusive, unfair, and deceptive debt collection practices. It is codified at 15 U.S.C. §§ 1692–1692p. Section 1692 by itself is only the opening section, containing Congress’s findings and its declaration of purpose; the full Act runs through § 1692p.

Congress stated the Act’s purpose in the statute itself: “to eliminate abusive debt collection practices by debt collectors, to insure that those debt collectors who refrain from using abusive debt collection practices are not competitively disadvantaged, and to promote consistent State action to protect consumers against debt collection abuses.” 15 U.S.C. § 1692(e). Those goals frame the rights below.

Under the FDCPA, you have the right to:

  • Request validation of the debt. The collector’s first communication, or a written notice it must send within five days of first contacting you, has to state the amount of the debt, the name of the creditor, and that unless you dispute the debt within 30 days after receiving the notice, the collector will assume it is valid. 15 U.S.C. § 1692g(a).
  • Dispute the debt. If you notify the collector in writing within that 30-day window that you dispute the debt, the collector must cease collection of the debt, or any disputed portion, until it obtains verification of the debt or a copy of a judgment and mails that verification to you. 15 U.S.C. § 1692g(b). Note that failing to dispute within 30 days is not a legal admission that you owe the debt. 15 U.S.C. § 1692g(c).
  • Demand that the collector stop contacting you. Once you notify the collector in writing that you refuse to pay the debt or want it to stop contacting you, the collector must cease communicating with you about that debt, subject to three narrow exceptions: (1) to advise you that its collection efforts are being terminated; (2) to notify you that it or the creditor may invoke remedies it ordinarily invokes; or (3) where applicable, to notify you that it or the creditor intends to invoke a specified remedy, such as a lawsuit. 15 U.S.C. § 1692c(c). An oral request does not trigger this protection: the notice must be in writing. And if you mail the notice, it takes effect when the collector receives it, not when you send it.

If a debt collector fails to comply with the FDCPA, a court may hold it liable for your actual damages, which are uncapped. 15 U.S.C. § 1692k(a)(1). In an individual action the court may also award additional statutory damages of up to $1,000. That $1,000 ceiling applies per action (per lawsuit), not per violation: proving ten violations by a single collector in one lawsuit still limits your statutory damages to $1,000, though the court may award up to $1,000 separately against each collector you sue. 15 U.S.C. § 1692k(a)(2)(A). In any successful action you can also recover the costs of the action and a reasonable attorney’s fee, which is often what makes an FDCPA claim worth bringing when actual damages are small. 15 U.S.C. § 1692k(a)(3). That fee provision cuts both ways: if a court finds you brought the action in bad faith and for the purpose of harassment, it may order you to pay the collector’s reasonable attorney’s fees and costs. 15 U.S.C. § 1692k(a)(3).

When to Send a Cease and Desist to a Collection Agency

A cease and desist letter to a collection agency is appropriate in several situations:

  • Disputed debt: You do not believe you owe the debt, or the amount claimed is incorrect.
  • Harassment by collectors: The collector is calling excessively, calling at unreasonable hours, using threatening language, or contacting your employer or family members.
  • Wrong person: The debt belongs to someone else (mistaken identity, stolen identity, or a debt you never incurred).
  • Time-barred debt: The statute of limitations on the debt has expired. Under Regulation F, which implements the FDCPA, “[a] debt collector must not bring or threaten to bring a legal action against a consumer to collect a time-barred debt.” 12 C.F.R. § 1006.26(a)–(b). A mere threat to sue on an old, time-barred debt is itself a violation, not only an actual filing. Keep in mind, though, that this prohibition does not physically prevent a collector from filing suit anyway, so if you are ever sued on a debt you believe is too old to collect, do not ignore the lawsuit and consider consulting an attorney promptly. And be careful how you respond, because making a partial payment on, or acknowledging in writing that you owe, a time-barred debt can restart the statute of limitations in some states (the effect varies by state and by the terms of the underlying contract). See Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Can debt collectors collect a debt that’s several years old?

What Happens After You Send the Letter

After a collection agency receives your cease and desist letter:

  • Communication must stop: Under the FDCPA, the collector must stop contacting you about the debt once it receives your written notice, except to advise you that its collection efforts are being terminated, to notify you that it or the creditor may invoke a remedy it ordinarily invokes, or to notify you that it or the creditor intends to invoke a specified remedy, such as filing a lawsuit. 15 U.S.C. § 1692c(c).
  • The debt does not disappear: A cease and desist letter stops the collection calls, but it does not eliminate the underlying debt. The creditor or collector can still sue you if it believes the debt is valid. 15 U.S.C. § 1692c(c).
  • Credit reporting implications: The debt may still appear on your credit report. The FDCPA does not force a collector to report the debt at all, and it does not require your dispute to be in writing for this rule to apply. But if the collector does report the debt to a credit bureau and knows or should know you have disputed it, it may not omit that the debt is disputed: failing to communicate that a disputed debt is disputed is a prohibited false or misleading representation. 15 U.S.C. § 1692e(8). (A written dispute is what triggers the separate debt-verification and collection-pause duties under 15 U.S.C. § 1692g(b). The credit-reporting rule, by contrast, applies even when the dispute is not in writing. 15 U.S.C. § 1692e(8).)
  • Assignment to another collector: In some cases, the original collector may sell or assign the debt to a new collection agency, which may then attempt to contact you. A new collector is not bound by the cease and desist you sent to the previous collector, because the FDCPA’s cease-communication duty runs only to the collector that actually received your written notice; send a fresh notice to each new collector. 15 U.S.C. § 1692c(c).

Common Mistakes to Avoid

  • Sending a C&D before validating the debt: Consider requesting debt validation first. If the collector cannot verify the debt, you may have an even stronger position.
  • Admitting you owe the debt: Be careful with your language. Do not acknowledge the debt in your letter, as this could be used against you later.
  • Making a partial payment: Any payment, even a small one, can restart the statute of limitations on a time-barred debt in some jurisdictions.
  • Using aggressive or threatening language: Keep your letter professional and factual. The purpose is to assert your legal rights, not to escalate the situation.
  • Failing to keep records: Send your letter via certified mail with return receipt requested, and keep copies of everything. This creates a paper trail if the collector violates the FDCPA.

Free Download of the Collection Agency Cease and Desist Letter Template

→ CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD collection-agency-cease-and-desist.doc

[Your name]
[Your address]

[Creditor’s name]
[Creditor’s address]

[Date]

RE: Collection attempts on a debt I do not owe.

Dear [Name of collector]:

On [date of phone call(s)], you or someone from your company contacted me about a debt. I do not believe that I owe this, and I dispute it.

In accordance with the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, formally known as and codified under 15 USCA §§ 1692(a-p), I dispute this debt and request the following. Under the Act, once you receive my written dispute you are required to provide verification of the debt or a copy of any judgment against me, and, on my request, the name and address of the original creditor (items d and e below). I am also requesting the remaining items to help me evaluate the claim, though the Act may not compel all of them:

a) Why do I owe the money?
b) How this amount has been calculated in a way I can understand.
c) Copies of the papers where I agreed to pay what you say I owe.
d) (if applicable) a copy of the judgment.
e) The name of the original creditor.
f) Demonstrate that you are licensed in my state, and provide this license number to me.

Additionally, please provide this letter to the company for whom you are collecting so that they have notice of my dispute.

Please inform any credit reporting agencies to which you have reported this debt to, that this debt is currently in dispute. I will require proof that you have done this.

You are also required to cease and desist from contacting me in this and any related matters unless it is by United States Mail, and only for the purpose of informing me that you are terminating all efforts to collect or that you are taking specific court of legal action.

Sincerely,

[Your signature]_________
[Your printed (typed) name]

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a collection agency still sue me after a cease and desist?

Yes. A cease and desist letter stops the collection agency from contacting you, but it does not prevent it from filing a lawsuit to collect the debt. The FDCPA expressly permits a collector to notify you that it intends to invoke a specified remedy, such as legal action, even after receiving your cease and desist letter. 15 U.S.C. § 1692c(c).

Will a cease and desist letter affect my credit score?

Sending a cease and desist letter does not directly affect your credit score. The underlying debt may still be reported to credit bureaus. If you have disputed the debt and the collector reports it, the collector may not communicate credit information it knows or should know is false, which includes failing to note that a disputed debt is disputed. 15 U.S.C. § 1692e(8). The FDCPA does not require this dispute to be in writing for that rule to apply.

Can I send a cease and desist to the original creditor?

As a general rule the FDCPA regulates third-party debt collectors, those who regularly collect “debts owed or due or asserted to be owed or due another,” not an original creditor collecting its own debt in its own name. 15 U.S.C. § 1692a(6). So if the original creditor is collecting the debt directly, rather than through a collection agency, the FDCPA’s cease-and-desist provisions may not reach it.

There is an important edge, though: an original creditor does not automatically escape the Act. The definition of “debt collector” expressly includes a creditor who, in the process of collecting its own debts, uses any name other than its own that would indicate a third party is collecting. 15 U.S.C. § 1692a(6). A creditor collecting under a fake or third-party-sounding name becomes a debt collector, and the cease-and-desist provisions apply to it.

There is a wrinkle from the U.S. Supreme Court on how the Act treats buyers of defaulted debt. In Henson v. Santander Consumer USA Inc., 137 S. Ct. 1718 (2017), the Court held that a company that buys defaulted debt and then collects it for its own account is not a “debt collector” under the “owed or due another” prong of the definition, because it collects debts it owns rather than debts owed to another; the Court expressly left open whether such a buyer can still qualify under the separate “principal purpose” prong. Henson nuances, but does not overturn, the original-creditor line drawn above.

Because the federal FDCPA generally excludes a creditor collecting its own debt, your state’s law is often the source of any rights you have against an original creditor. In Minnesota, for example, the Consumer Fraud Act reaches “any person” who uses “fraud, unfair or unconscionable practice, false pretense, . . . misrepresentation, misleading statement or deceptive practice . . . in connection with the sale of any merchandise,” a reach broad enough to cover an original creditor. Minn. Stat. § 325F.69, subd. 1.

What if the collection agency violates the cease and desist?

If a collector continues to contact you after receiving your cease and desist letter (beyond the three narrow exceptions permitted by law), it is violating the FDCPA. 15 U.S.C. § 1692c(c). You may recover any actual damages, additional statutory damages of up to $1,000 in an individual action as the court may allow, and the costs of the action plus a reasonable attorney’s fee. 15 U.S.C. § 1692k(a). Document every violation: save call logs, voicemails, and any written communications.