Especially as Americans strive to recover fiscally from the Coronavirus pandemic – a process that will take years – it is a sad reality that debt collection companies will enjoy more business than ever.  Consumers with overdue bills or other debts placed in collection should be aware that, in many situations – even when the debt is owed – federal and state law provide a potent arsenal for the indebted consumer.  These include the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, a federal law that prohibits a broad array of abusive, deceptive, and unfair practices by debt collectors.  In enacting this law, the federal government specifically recognized that debt collector misconduct contributes to the number of personal bankruptcies, to marital instability, to the loss of jobs, and to invasions of individual privacy.  Unfortunately, many of the largest debt  collectors in the country, including collection agencies and collection law firms, are repeat offenders with abysmal track records of consumer abuse.  The Firm helps indebted consumers determine whether a given debt collector has violated the consumer’s rights and, if so, can assist the consumer in causing the illegal collection efforts to stop and in holding the debt collector monetarily accountable.