You can owe the money and still be treated unlawfully. A firm is allowed to chase a debt, but it is not allowed to frighten, embarrass, mislead or wear you down into paying.
This is general information, not financial advice. The FCA rules below apply across the UK. The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 sections quoted here apply in England and Wales, and Scotland and Northern Ireland have different harassment rules.
Quick answer
Debt collectors and creditors can contact you about a debt, but regulated firms must not contact you at unreasonable times, ignore your reasonable requests about when, where and how they contact you, tell other people about your debt, threaten action they cannot take or pressure you to pay more than you can afford. Serious, repeated conduct can also be harassment under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. Keep a dated log, write to the firm with your request and your complaint, and take it to the Financial Ombudsman Service if the firm does not put it right. None of this clears the debt, but it can stop the behaviour.
What counts as harassment, and what does not
Being chased for a debt is stressful, but stress alone does not make it unlawful. The question is how the firm is behaving. Most of the rules that help you are FCA rules, so a firm can break them without its conduct being harassment in the legal sense.
| What is happening | Where it stands |
|---|---|
| A reminder, a letter or an occasional call about a debt | Allowed. A firm can ask for money it believes it is owed. |
| Arrears notices and default notices | Allowed, and often required by the Consumer Credit Act 1974. Asking for no more calls will not stop them. |
| Calls at unreasonable times, or after you have reasonably asked for contact another way | A likely breach of CONC 7.9.4R. |
| Telling your family, employer or neighbours about the debt | A likely breach of CONC 7.9.6R and 7.9.7R. |
| Visiting your work or a hospital where you are a patient | Normally inappropriate (CONC 7.9.15G). |
| Refusing to leave your home when you reasonably ask | Breach of CONC 7.9.14R(6). |
| Threatening bailiffs, court or a visit when it cannot legally happen | Breach of CONC 7.11.6R. |
| Letters made to look like court papers | Breach of CONC 7.11.3R if designed to mislead, or likely to, about the firm's status. |
| Pressing you to borrow, or sell your property, to pay | Breach of CONC 7.3.10R. |
| Carrying on chasing after you dispute the debt with what may be valid grounds | Breach of CONC 7.14.1R. |
How many calls is too many?
There is no set number. CONC 7.9 does not give a limit on calls or a list of allowed hours, so be careful with anything that says calls after a certain time are automatically banned. What counts as unreasonable depends on your situation, which is why your log and your written request matter so much.
A collector crossing the line?
See how we can help in 10 minutes
We'll go through what has happened, what the rules allow and what to send. Prefer to start on your own? The free letter below is yours to use.
Book a Clarity CallRather type than talk? Ask in the Members’ Hub and get a written answer within 6 hours, during opening hours. £5 for your first month if you’re new.
Prefer to watch first? This video covers what counts as harassment, how many calls is too many, the FCA rules, when it is against the law and what to do about it.
The FCA rules on how firms can contact you
These rules are in CONC, the FCA's consumer credit rulebook. They cover lenders, debt collectors and debt purchasers collecting regulated consumer credit debts. Council tax, HMRC and some business debts are handled differently, although harassment law still applies.
When, where and how they contact you
The FCA rule (verbatim)
“A firm must not contact customers at unreasonable times and must pay due regard to the reasonable requests of customers (for example, customers who work in a shift pattern) in respect of when, where and how they may be contacted.”
Source: FCA Handbook, CONC 7.9.4R
In plain English: you can ask for post only, no calls at work or no calls during your shifts, and the firm has to take that request seriously. It is not an absolute right to choose, and it does not stop the firm contacting you altogether. Put the request in writing, so nobody can say it was never made.
Telling other people about your debt
The FCA rules (verbatim)
“A firm must not unfairly disclose or threaten to disclose information relating to the customer's debt to a third party.”
“(1) a firm must ensure that it does not act in a way likely to be publicly embarrassing to the customer; and (2) a firm must take reasonable steps to ensure that third parties do not become aware that the customer is being pursued in respect of a debt”
In plain English: a firm should not tell your partner, parents, boss or neighbours that you owe money, and it should not act in a way that lets them work it out. These rules are not limited to any one method, so they apply to a public social media comment as much as to a phone call.
Pressure to pay
The FCA rule (verbatim)
“A firm must not pressurise a customer: (1) to pay a debt in one single or very few repayments or in unreasonably large amounts, when to do so would have an adverse impact on the customer's financial circumstances; (2) to pay a debt within an unreasonably short period of time; or (3) to raise funds to repay the debt by selling their property, borrowing money or increasing existing borrowing.”
Source: FCA Handbook, CONC 7.3.10R
In plain English: "pay it all by Friday" or "borrow it from your family" is the kind of pressure this rule is about. Firms must also treat people in arrears with "forbearance and due consideration" (CONC 7.3.4R). That does not mean a firm has to accept whatever you offer, but if it turns your offer down it must explain why clearly (CONC 7.14.9R), and it must not do anything intended, or likely, to intimidate you into offering more (CONC 7.14.10R).
If you tell the firm you are working out a repayment plan, it must pause active collection for a reasonable period (CONC 7.3.11R). That should generally be 30 days where there is evidence you genuinely intend to make a plan (CONC 7.3.12G). Our free Budget Planner gives you a summary to send, and you do not usually have to fill in the creditor's own form. See do I have to fill in an income and expenditure form?
Threats and scare tactics
The FCA rules (verbatim)
“A firm must not suggest or state that action can or will be taken when legally it cannot be taken.”
“A firm must not threaten to commence court action, including an application for a charging order or (in Scotland) an inhibition or an order for sale, in order to pressurise a customer in or approaching arrears or in default to pay more than they can reasonably afford.”
Source: FCA Handbook, CONC 7.11.6R and CONC 7.3.18R
In plain English: a firm can tell you court is possible, but it cannot use that threat to push you beyond what you can afford. It also cannot say "our bailiffs will call" before a court has given it that power (CONC 7.11.8R covers threats of warrants before a judgment). A collector is not a bailiff and has no right to come in. In England and Wales, prison for not paying a normal consumer debt is not a real threat: the Debtors Act 1869 abolished imprisonment for debt, with narrow exceptions that do not include ordinary credit cards or loans.
For more on the common lines firms use, see debt collector pressure tactics.
Visits to your home or work
The FCA rule (verbatim extract)
A firm must not “act in a threatening manner towards a customer”, “enter a customer's property without the customer's consent or an appropriate court order” or “refuse to leave a customer's property when reasonably asked to do so”.
Source: FCA Handbook, CONC 7.9.14R
In plain English: you do not have to let a collector in or keep talking on the doorstep. The same rule bars visits when the firm knows or suspects you may be particularly vulnerable, and visits without your agreement when the debt is deadlocked or reasonably queried or disputed.
If you do not think you owe it
The FCA rule (verbatim)
“A firm must suspend any steps it takes or its agent takes in the recovery of a debt from a customer where the customer disputes the debt on valid grounds or what may be valid grounds.”
Source: FCA Handbook, CONC 7.14.1R
In plain English: saying "I am not paying" is not a dispute. Saying "this is not my debt, the amount is wrong or it does not exist" can be. The firm must then investigate, and it is for the firm to establish that you owe it (CONC 7.14.4R). If you have never heard of the firm, see how debt collectors buy debt.
When it is against the law
Breaking an FCA rule is not always harassment in law. The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 sets a higher bar, but it applies to anyone, including companies.
The Act (verbatim)
“A person must not pursue a course of conduct— (a) which amounts to harassment of another, and (b) which he knows or ought to know amounts to harassment of the other.”
“References to harassing a person include alarming the person or causing the person distress.”
Source: Protection from Harassment Act 1997, section 1(1) and section 7(2)
In plain English: it has to happen on at least two occasions (section 7(3)), speech counts (section 7(4)), and the test is what a reasonable person would think, not what the firm intended (section 1(2)). A firm can argue its conduct was reasonable in the circumstances (section 1(3)(c)).
It is both a crime, with up to six months in prison or a fine (section 2), and something you can sue for. A court can award damages for "any anxiety caused by the harassment and any financial loss resulting from the harassment" (section 3(2)).
The case that matters
In Ferguson v British Gas Trading Ltd [2009] EWCA Civ 46, a former customer received months of bills and threats about an account she no longer had, including threats to report her to credit reference agencies. British Gas argued the letters came from a computer and were not serious enough. The Court of Appeal refused to throw the claim out.
The Court of Appeal (verbatim)
“A real person is likely to suffer real anxiety and distress if threatened in the way which Ms Ferguson was.”
In plain English: "it was only an automated system" is not a way out for a big company. The bar is still high, though. The same judgment says the conduct "must be grave", and the decision only allowed the claim to go to trial. Ordinary reminders about a real debt will not meet it.
The law many pages still quote
You may see section 40 of the Administration of Justice Act 1970 quoted as the offence of harassing a debtor. For consumers being chased over a debt, that is out of date.
Section 40 now says (verbatim)
“Subsection (1) above does not apply to anything done by a person to another in circumstances where what is done is a commercial practice within the meaning of Chapter 1 of Part 4 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 and the other is a consumer in relation to that practice.”
The rules that now matter are in the 2024 Act. It treats a firm agreeing to settle your liabilities in return for your payment as supplying a service (section 248(2)), and it says a practice is aggressive "if it uses harassment, coercion or undue influence" (section 228(1)). A court would decide any individual case. Timing, location, threatening language, exploiting vulnerability and threats of action that cannot legally be taken all count (section 228(2)). Trading Standards and the Competition and Markets Authority enforce these rules (section 231).
It also lists "persistent and unwanted solicitations" as always unfair, but with an exception "to the extent justified to enforce a contractual obligation" (Schedule 20, paragraph 28). So it is not a simple ban on asking for a debt to be paid.
Keep a log from today
A complaint saying "they keep calling me" is easy to brush off. A dated list is much harder. For every contact, write down:
- the date and time
- how they made contact (call, missed call, text, email, letter or visit)
- the number or address it came from, and the person's name if you have it
- what was said, as close to word for word as you can
- how it affected you, such as a call in front of your children or at work
Keep every letter and envelope, and save voicemails and screenshots of texts. Ask anyone who was contacted about your debt to write down what they were told, and when.
What to do, step by step
- Check who they are. Ask for the firm's full name and look it up on the FCA Register. Do not give card details or confirm personal information to someone you cannot identify.
- Check the debt. If you do not recognise it, or the amount looks wrong, say so in writing. It may also be too old to enforce: see statute-barred debt.
- Send the letter below. It sets out what has happened, makes your request about contact and makes a formal complaint.
- Deal with what you can afford. If you owe the money, a budget summary and an offer you can keep to can take a lot of the heat out of it. See token payments.
- Do not ignore what comes by post. Asking for written contact does not stop a firm going to court, so keep reading the letters. See county court judgments.
- Take it further after eight weeks. The firm has eight weeks to send a final response (DISP 1.6.2R). If you are unhappy with it, or it does not arrive, go to the Financial Ombudsman Service. You normally have six months from the final response (DISP 2.8.2R). Our complaints guide covers each stage.
- If you feel unsafe, call the police. Call 999 if you are in immediate danger. Threats of death or serious harm can be an offence under the Online Safety Act 2023, and menacing messages, or persistently using a phone network to cause needless anxiety, can be an offence under the Communications Act 2003.
Free template
Letter to a firm about how it contacts you
Copied. Or skip the sending and the follow-ups: hand it all over to us.
Replace everything in the highlighted brackets with your own details, and delete any lines that do not apply. Prefer to print it? Download the PDF.
[Your full name]
[Your address]
[Date]
[Firm's name and address]
Reference: [account or reference number]
Dear Sir or Madam,
I am writing about how your firm has been contacting me about this account. Please treat this letter as a formal complaint.
Between [start date] and [end date], your firm contacted me [number] times by [phone, text, email, visits]. The details are: [list each date, time, method and what was said].
[Delete if it does not apply:] Your firm has also [spoken to whom about the debt, called me at work, said it would do what].
[Delete if you prefer not to say:] This has affected me because [for example your sleep, your work or your health].
Under CONC 7.9.4R, your firm must not contact me at unreasonable times and must pay due regard to my reasonable requests about when, where and how I am contacted. My request is that from now on you contact me only [by post at the address above, or by email at this address]. Please do not phone, text or visit me, contact me at work, or contact anyone else about this account.
Please confirm in writing within 14 days that this request is on my account and has been passed to anyone acting for you. Please send your final response to my complaint within eight weeks.
I will keep a record of any further contact. If this is not put right, I will take my complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service, and I will consider the other steps open to me, including under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.
This letter is about how I am being contacted. It is not an acknowledgement of the debt, or of any amount claimed, for the purposes of the Limitation Act 1980.
Yours faithfully,
[Your name]
Or hand it all over
Rather not deal with any of this yourself?
With Full Support, you send us the letters and we take it from there. We prepare your replies in your words for you to approve, keep track of what comes back and follow up when a creditor goes quiet, until every creditor has agreed. One fixed fee, quoted free within one working day.
Get my free quote →Free to ask. You only pay if you accept your quote.
Your routes, and who pays for each
| Route | What it costs you | What it can do |
|---|---|---|
| Complaint to the firm | Nothing | Change how it contacts you, put errors right and pay compensation. |
| Financial Ombudsman Service | Nothing | Decide the complaint and award compensation, which the firm pays. |
| Court claim under the 1997 Act | Court fees, and you could have to pay the firm's costs if you lose | Damages and an injunction (section 3). |
| Police | Nothing | Investigate a possible offence. This route punishes the conduct and does not pay you. |
You can also report a firm to the FCA, and to your local Trading Standards team. Those reports can help them act against a firm, but the Ombudsman is the route for your own case. A breach of an FCA rule marked "R" can also be grounds for a court claim if it causes you loss (section 138D of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000), with the same risk over costs.
What compensation could look like
The Financial Ombudsman Service publishes its own bands for distress and inconvenience. They are not a promise, and every case turns on its facts.
| Award | The kind of impact it reflects |
|---|---|
| Under £100 | A one-off mistake, quickly put right |
| £100 to £300 | Repeated small errors, or an impact lasting days or weeks |
| Over £300, up to about £750 | "Considerable distress, upset and worry", lasting many weeks or months |
| Over £750, up to about £1,500 | "Substantial distress, upset and worry", potentially serious offence or humiliation |
| Over £1,500, up to about £5,000 | "Sustained distress, potentially affecting someone's health", with severe disruption to daily life, typically lasting more than a year |
The Ombudsman says it does not normally pay this kind of compensation to someone complaining on your behalf, so the distress has to be your own. An upheld complaint does not clear what you owe.
If it is affecting your health
Tell the firm in writing if you want it to take this into account. Firms must not visit when they know or suspect you may be particularly vulnerable (CONC 7.9.14R), and what they do has to reflect your circumstances (CONC 7.3.4BR). It is your choice how much you share.
If you are struggling, you can call Samaritans free on 116 123, day or night, or call NHS 111 and select the mental health option. If your life is at risk, call 999.
When the debt itself is the problem
Stopping the behaviour does not deal with the debt. Once the calls have stopped, the letters still need answers. The free Budget Planner shows what you can afford and gives you one summary to send to every creditor. Our guide to dealing with debt collectors covers what to say next.
FAQs · Debt collector harassment
What counts as harassment by a debt collector?
Conduct that alarms you or causes you distress, on at least two occasions, where a reasonable person would see it as harassment. Separately, FCA rules stop regulated firms contacting you at unreasonable times, telling others about your debt, threatening action they cannot take or pressuring you to pay more than you can afford. A firm can break those rules without it being harassment in law.
How many calls from a debt collector is harassment?
There is no set number. The FCA rules do not give a limit on calls or a list of allowed hours. What counts depends on your situation, including how often, when, what was said and whether the firm ignored a reasonable request. Keep a dated log.
Can I make a debt collector stop calling me?
You can ask, and the firm must pay due regard to your reasonable requests about when, where and how it contacts you. Put it in writing and ask for post or email only. It is not an absolute right, and legal notices and letters will still come.
Can a debt collector call me at work?
They should respect a reasonable request not to. Ask in writing for no contact at work. They must also take reasonable steps to make sure other people do not find out about the debt, and a visit to your workplace would normally be inappropriate.
Can a debt collector contact my family or friends?
They must not unfairly disclose or threaten to disclose your debt to anyone else. They must also take reasonable steps to make sure others do not become aware you are being chased for a debt.
Can a debt collector message me on social media?
The FCA rules do not name social media, but the same rules apply. A firm must not act in a way likely to be publicly embarrassing, or let others become aware of the debt, so a public post or comment would be a serious problem. Screenshot it and keep it for your complaint.
Can a debt collector come to my house?
They can visit in some cases, but they have no right to come in without your consent or a court order, must not act in a threatening way and must leave when reasonably asked. They must not visit without your agreement when the debt is deadlocked or reasonably queried or disputed.
Can I go to prison for not paying a debt collector?
Not for ordinary consumer debt in England and Wales. The Debtors Act 1869 abolished imprisonment for debt, with narrow exceptions that do not include normal credit cards or loans. A firm must not suggest action can be taken when legally it cannot.
Can I claim compensation for harassment by a debt collector?
You can ask for it in your complaint, and the Financial Ombudsman Service can award compensation for distress and inconvenience if it upholds your complaint. You can also claim damages in court under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, but you could have to pay costs if you lose.
Does complaining about harassment clear my debt?
No. A complaint deals with how you were treated. If you owe the debt, it still has to be dealt with, although compensation can be awarded and the firm has to change what it was doing if the complaint is upheld.
Got a letter or a question today?
Post it in the Members’ Hub and get a written answer from The Real Debt Guy within 6 hours, during opening hours, with no call needed. It’s £5 for your first month if you’re new, and you choose a display name, so you don’t have to use your real name.
See what membership includes