Consumer credit card debt is not only an issue that is crippling the people of America but the Europeans are also entangled in the same debt crisis. When a debtor is unable to repay his debts through the scheduled monthly payments and he starts defaulting on them, the creditors sell off the accounts to the debt collection agencies. Once the accounts are sold off to the debt collection agencies, it’s tough time for the debtors as they start getting harassing calls from the collection agents whose sole job is to recuperate the money on behalf of the credit card company. This entire process often gets harassing and therefore there has to be an organization that checks that the debtors and the consumers are safe. In Europe, the OFT, or the Office of Fair Trading issues guidance for all the debtors who are under the strict clutch of the debt collection agencies and helps them avoid any kind of abuse. Have a look at the rules and guidelines of the OFT.

Debt collection guidance as updated by the OFT

For all those licensed companies that are entitled to collect debts from the consumers, the OFT has updated the particular debt collection guidance. Here the OFT sets forward all the rules and guidelines that it expects from all the companies that are working as debt collection agencies. According to the guidelines, the consumer protection is usually the main aim of the Office of Fair Trading and this applies with regards to all the companies that are engaged in collecting consumer credit card debt amounts.

The Consumer Credit Act 1974 requires most business organizations that offer credit for hire or that lend money to the consumers to be licensed by the OFT or the Office of Fair Trading. The duty of the OFT is to protect the rights of the consumers so that the debt collection companies don’t dupe the consumers and make them pay more than what they actually owe.

New rules that can ease EU debt collection practices

According to recent reports, the European Commission introduced new rules in order to make it easier to recover debts from the bank accounts that are placed anywhere in the 27 country bloc. It has been studied that the companies in the EU lose about 2.7% of their turnover due to debts that couldn’t be recovered and this almost amounts to 600 million Euros. The new rules that still need to be approved by the European parliament would help all the creditors to recover money from the cross-border deals. Under this particular proposal, the creditor in one EU state can use a single process to ask authorities of the company to block the funds within the debtor’s accounts so that they can be recuperated.

Therefore, when you owe debt to the credit card companies and the debt collectors are harassing you for repayment of debt, you should ensure getting help from the professional companies so that you’re not harassed by the debt collection agencies.