As usual, it\'s a good news, bad news scenario. The good news is that you\'ve made a commitment to eliminate as many debts as possible. The bad news is there\'s a little matter from the past that has stuck up its ugly head and is ready to bite you. Every time you hear the phone ring you jump. The debt collection company is after you. The creditor harassment is making you anxious.

The phone is ringing at all hours, and the voice at the end of the line is getting nasty. They\'ve started to say they\'ll be passing your case on to their legal department. And now they\'re saying they intend to do an investigation of your assets to determine your ability to pay and move to the next level. You don\'t even want to think about what the \"next level\" might be.

You\'ve been told you\'re refusing to pay and the aggressive debt collectors have threatened to put a lien on your house. A few times they even mentioned the possibility of being thrown in jail if you don\'t pay. The truth is you\'d like nothing better than to be able to pay, just to make the calls stop.

But it\'s important to keep your debt situation in perspective. If nothing else, the recent meltdown of the world wide financial system has demonstrated how hypocritical banks and financial institutions can be. On the one hand they expect all the little people to \"pay up or else\". On the other hand they are quite happy to have their own mountain of bad debts forgiven by government bailouts.

The fact is, our attitude towards debt has changed a lot over the years. A few hundred years ago in the British legal system a person who could not pay a debt would be declared bankrupt and imprisoned. They didn\'t fool around in those days. Laws were even passed in the 1500s and 1600s that made it illegal to help a bankrupt person get out of his sorry situation. In some cases an impoverished debtor could even be hanged, although that didn\'t happen very often. Imprisonment was far more common.

Even earlier in history, the Greeks and Romans had an even simpler solution for a person who could not pay his or her debts. They simply condemned the unfortunate person to slavery and arranged for the creditor to be paid with hard labor.

So as bad as you are feeling, take a deep breath and be thankful that things are a lot better today. Today in most countries punishing people who can\'t pay their debts is against the law.

In fact even the practice of harassing a debtor is illegal in the United States. The law designed to stop abusive and overly aggressive collection practices is called the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act - FDCPA for short. This law exists to make illegal some of the more common tactics used by debt collectors. The things you are experiencing could very well be turned around and used against the collection agencies that are hounding you.

If you think you might be the victim of creditor harassment, your best course of action is to be proactive, and contact a fair debt attorney. But before you do, it\'s a good idea to get your facts straight and make a special point of recording what is happening to you. Make a note of the phone calls. Do not exaggerate, just put down the facts. An experienced debt relief lawyer may find that you are entitled to monetary compensation at the expense of the very collection agency that is harassing you.