Cease-and-Desist Letter.

In plain English

A cease-and-desist letter is a written notice you send a third-party debt collector telling them to stop contacting you. Under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), once a collector receives it, they generally must stop reaching out except to confirm they are stopping or to tell you about a specific action, such as a lawsuit. It is a powerful tool against harassment, repeated calls, or contact at bad hours. But it has a real tradeoff: stopping contact does not erase the debt, and it can push a collector toward suing you instead of calling.

01Why it matters

If a collector is calling you at work, calling relatives, or phoning many times a day, a cease-and-desist letter is your legal right to make the harassment stop, but you need to know it can also remove your chance to negotiate before they go to court.

02The math, step by step

A collector calls you five times a day and once at 11 p.m. You mail a cease-and-desist letter by certified mail. After they receive it, the calls must stop under the FDCPA. But the debt is still owed, so the collector may respond by filing a lawsuit. If a court summons arrives, do not ignore it. Respond by the deadline, because ignoring it usually means an automatic loss called a default judgment.

03What this is NOT

04Receipts

Every figure on this page is sourced to a primary document. Tap to open the original.