Debt collecting agencies will go to great lengths to gather funds they feel a consumer owes. Understandably, when you default on an unsecured loan like a credit card and this past-due account has been bought and thus paid for by modern-day bounty hunters, it’s their business to stay in business by getting folks to pay up. So it’s up to us to call them out on their illegal tactics.

Law #1: Calling too early, too late or too often. A collector cannot call you before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. unless you agree to it. If you aren’t prepared to talk when they call, be careful how you rephrase when they can get back to you. If they call you too much, this constitutes as harassment.

Law #2: Involving your family or workplace with debt details. By law, debt collecting agencies are allowed to call each and every relative they want and ask for verification on certain type of information, but not about the debt in question. And the minute your boss or cousin tells them to stop calling, they must obey.

Law #3: Threatening to sue. Although it is quite possible (and in most cases rare) for the original lender to sue, it is entirely illegal for a third-party collector to threaten to take you to a court of law to collect on the debt, no matter how impressive the legal-speak sounds. Remind them they do not have this right as well as a few unknown others.

Law #4: Posing as a legal figure. If a debt collector claims to be a lawyer, you have the right to wave the FDCPA rule book. Many collection business use phony law firm sounding names and fancy language in order to do one thing: intimidate you into paying up. Remember, they are masters at what they do, which more times than not means resorting to deceptive practices to get the job done.

Law #5: Harassing you in any way. If you haven’t figure it out by now, despite how aggressive or important a debt collector might come off, federal laws keep them very limited as to what they can do. In fact, the simplest thing you can do to get a debt collector off your back is to tell them you are feeling harassed and to stop calling you. It’s your call and by law, they must stop.