by Ben Sweiry ·
Modified on 18 July, 2023
- Yes, you can get a payday lender to stop contacting you.
- One of the more common reasons a payday lender might try to contact you is over an unpaid debt.
- Even if you owe money to a payday lender, the lender and any debt collectors are limited by the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and are not allowed to repeatedly call or harass you.
How To Stop a Payday Lender Contacting You
Step 1 – Contact the lender and explain your situation. This could result in creating an arrangement or a different agreement to help you repay your loan
Step 2 – Speak to your bank if you do not want any payments to come out of your account, however, the debt will still be owed
Step 3 – Send a ‘Cease Communication Letter’ to the lender to stop them contacting you
Step 4 – If this does not stop any communication, you can report the lender to the Federal Trade Commission
The most common cause of payday lenders repeatedly trying to contact you via phone call, email or letter is over unpaid debts.
When you sign a payday loan agreement with a lender, you will agree to repay your loan in chunks on certain dates.
Usually you will not have to do anything to repay, as in your contract, you will likely have signed an ACH Authorization agreement which automatically withdraws your repayments. However, if you don’t have enough money in your account to repay when your payments are supposed to be taken, your lender may attempt to contact you.
Ideally, you do not want to be in a situation where your lender has to repeatedly call you about unpaid debts. This can be uncomfortable and also could negatively impact your credit score which can reduce your chances of qualifying for future financial products.
If your lender is repeatedly trying to contact you to a point where you’re unhappy with them doing so, in order to stop a lender from contacting you, you may wish to send a ‘cease communication letter’.
After sending a cease communication letter, if your payday lenders ignore it and keep trying to call you, you could report it to the Federal Trade Commission and call a local state attorney general.
Generally speaking, if you know that you may struggle to make your repayments on-time and in full, best practice is to call your lender first and try to sort alternate repayment terms. A lender will typically look upon your case much more favorably if you contact them first to explain your situation.
Can a Payday Lender Call My Employer?
In some cases, yes, a payday lender can call your place of work if you are not making your repayments and are not answering their communications on your mobile, email, home phone or letters.
In general, your lender will only call your employer as a last resort as they would rather not cause you any further stress or make you feel more uncomfortable about unpaid debts.
Again, if you send a letter to your lender and request that they do not contact your employer or at your place of work then they should not do so.
If your lender ignores your letter or if it breaks any other FDCPA debt collection rules, you can report their actions to the Federal Trade Commission, the CFPB and your local state attorney general.
How To Stop Automatic Payments From Payday Lenders
When you sign your payday loan agreement, you will usually have signed an ACH Authorization agreement. This means that when the time comes to make your repayments, your lender will be able to automatically withdraw the amount owed from your bank account.
If you would like to stop your lender from making these automatic payments, firstly, inform your lender that you are taking away your permission for the company to take automatic payments out of your bank or credit union account. This is called “revoking authorization.”
The next step is to tell your bank that you have “revoked authorization” for your lender to take automatic payments from your account.
In addition, even if you have not revoked your authorization with your lender, you can stop an automatic payment from being charged to your account by giving your bank a “stop payment order.” This instructs your bank to stop the lender from taking payments from your account.