The good news is current consumer protection laws make it possible to put a stop to a junk debt buyer’s credit card debt collection efforts.

Junk debt buyers invest in discharged credit card debt for pennies on the dollar. They also sell and resell the debt they have purchased to other junk debt buyers for smaller and smaller sums of money. Business Week, as an example, reported Portfolio Recovery Associates, a large national junk debt buyer, paid $791.6 million over an 11 year period for $35.3 billion of debt in 16.7 million customer accounts. For each dollar of credit card debt that averages less than three cents.

According to the Credit Card Debt Survival Guide, those numbers indicate a junk debt buyer does not have to collect on even half of the debt purchased. They would be quite profitable, if they collected on a third of the debt.

A general lack of consumer knowledge of the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) gives junk debt buyers confidence in their ability to collect on these cheap debts. Junk debt buyers through their collection agencies mail tens of thousands of collection letters to consumers holding discharged credit card debt. Most addressees do not properly answer this initial communication in writing asking for documentation of the debt. If a consumer knew this batched debt comes on computer tape in groupings of thousands, sometimes millions, of accounts with little or no original documentation, they might respond more confidently.

The junk debt buyer’s collection agents frequently call consumers before the first notice arrives and violates the FDCPA by threatening a phony lawsuit if payment arrangements are not made promptly. Unfortunately for them, some consumers honestly admit to the alleged, undocumented debt to these strangers and make the collection agency’s job easier.

The original-creditor credit-card banks collection calls are not covered by the FDCPA, but those of junk debt buyers and their collection agencies are covered. A well written letter, like the ones that can be found in the Credit Card Debt Survival Guide, invoking sections of the FDCPA will force the junk debt buyers to stop their collection efforts including the placement of negative marks on the consumer’s credit report.

Matt Highlander writes for theCredit Card Debt Survival Guide, a guide for consumers looking for credit card debt relief.