Have you recently changed your cell phone number and begun receiving calls telling you that owe a large amount of money when in fact you don’t? Well this annoyance shouldn’t be occurring at all, as the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) that was originally intended to protect consumers from telemarketing calls on landlines also protects consumers from receiving auto dialer calls to their cell phones, unless prior permission has been given to these multiple debt collection agencies.

In years past, debt collectors were forced to manually dial each phone number, but now, due to innovative technology like auto dialers, a large number of collection calls can be made a in a very short period of time. A recent press release stated that debt collection calls made directly from an auto dialer usually follow a specific format and script with “Please hold for the next available representative” as the opening line in most situations. A delay or pause then follows, which is usually how callers can determine that an auto dialer is being used. A recent study completed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that the number of homes in the U.S. that no longer have landlines and rely only on cell phones for communication have doubled over the last three years, which is why debt collectors have turned towards calling cell phones rather than home phones to try and collect payment for overdue bills, according to the release.

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act enforces the same rules for debt collection calls to landlines for collection calls made by auto dialers to cell phones. If the consumer does not opt-in to collection calls to be made to their cell phones, then in fact these calls are in violation of the Do Not Call Registry.

In a recent case cited in the release, a man named Marco Rafala continuously received auto dialer calls from a collection agency on his cell phone. The agency was actually looking for a female who Rafala had never heard of before. Instead of the company realizing their mistake and taking his phone number off of their list, the debt collection agency continued to call Rafala, essentially harassing him. Law firm Weisberg and Meyers then got involved and consumer advocate Dennis Kurz stated, " A seemingly endless barrage of phone calls from a debt collector to your cell phone can be annoying, but the fact that the calls to Mr. Rafala were for an alleged debt for another consumer made the situation even worse. The FDCPA and the TCPA were enacted to protect consumers from harassment and illegal procedures debt collectors may use, and if it’s determined these calls were violations, the a consumer could be entitled to compensation in addition to cessation of the calls.”

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/330654#ixzz1PAFtQJBr