Most people would simply rather pay their credit card debts than deal with collection phone calls and collection attorney letters. But, what about those who cannot afford to make monthly minimum payments on their credit card debt? Many fall prey to the debt collection industry. Some, however, become educated consumers and use the law to force debt collectors to spend their time with other, less knowledgeable consumers.

Depending on how he or she spends it, time is the debt collector’s friend or enemy. Ideally debt collectors would like to spend their time with consumers who are easy to collect from. Everyone knows an overdue credit card debt will bring a call or letter for a debt collector. What they do not know is with a proper consumer response to that communication, the debt collector will move onto a more likely target.

Consumer debt collection has grown and prospered with the expansion of the credit card industry.

The Federal Reserve and Business Week report $133.7 billion of consumer debt in 1970 increased to $2.5 trillion of consumer debt in November 2007.

According to a trade group for the debt collection industry, ACA International, each year debt collectors put more than $40 billion back into the U.S. economy.

There were 173 million credit cardholders in the United States in 2006, According to the U.S. Census Bureau.

According to the American Banking Associate, in the first quarter of 2009, 4.75 percent of bank cards were delinquent.

These statistics indicate debt collectors are awash in millions of delinquent credit card accounts.

Credit card companies must comply with Federal Reserve regulations by keeping reserves to for bad debts. Bad debt is part of their business. After these debts are written off, junk debt buyers bid on blocks of delinquent credit card accounts. If successful, they pay no more than 10 cents for each dollar of debt. With that discount rate junk debt buyers and the collection agencies and collection attorneys who work for them only need to collect 30 or 40 percent of the debts to make money.

Debt collectors make the same empty threats to both resistant and non-resistant consumers holding credit card debt. Usually, however, they only follow-up with more threats and intimidation with the non-resistant majority of delinquent credit card account holders. The secret is learning the correct response to those initial threats and how to use the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA).

The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act covers the behavior of collection agencies, junk debt buyers, and collection attorneys. The FDCPA treats attorneys as debts collectors, if they are collecting consumer debt. The consumer must be notified in writing by the debt collector of their right to dispute the debt and have it validated, according to the FDCPA. Copies of original documentation that verifies a debt are considered proper validation by the FDCPA. The FDCPA gives the consumer the right to tell the debt collector to stop collection activity until they have validated the debt.

So, who should the consumer debt-collection commissioned professionals spend their time with, those who properly dispute and request validation or those who put up no resistance?