By Michael A. Ziegler, Esq., Ziegler Diamond Law
You think hiring a lawyer to go after a debt collector is going to cost you money. So you don’t do it. You let them call. You let them lie about what they can take from you. You take the hit because you can’t afford to fight back.
That’s the single most expensive thing most Floridians believe — and it’s wrong. Under Florida Statutes Section 559.77 and the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the violator pays your attorney’s fees and costs on top of whatever you recover. Not from your pot. On top of it.
I’ve been a Florida consumer-debt attorney for 13 years and helped over 4,000 people in this state push back on exactly the conduct you’re dealing with right now. The biggest unlock for almost all of them was learning that the cost barrier they’d built up in their head wasn’t real.
Two features of the law that change the cost equation
Congress and the Florida Legislature wrote the FDCPA, the Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act (FCCPA), the FCRA, and the TCPA with the same problem in mind. If a regular consumer had to come out of pocket to enforce these laws against a national bank or debt buyer, almost nobody would. The collector always wins. So the laws have two features that change the math completely.
Feature one: statutory damages. You don’t have to prove dollars-and-cents harm. Under the FCCPA, the moment a collector breaks the rules, you can recover up to $1,000 in statutory damages. The number is set by the statute — you don’t have to itemize a loss.
Feature two: fee-shifting. The same statutes say the violator — the debt collector, the debt buyer, the credit card company, the credit bureau — has to pay your attorney’s fees and costs separately, on top of whatever you recover. The legislature wrote it that way on purpose so consumers could enforce these rights without paying out of pocket.
That’s why our firm takes FCRA, FDCPA, FCCPA, and TCPA cases on contingency. We do not charge our clients to fight a debt collector who broke the law. We get paid by the violator, when we win.
What “reasonable attorney fees” actually means
Reasonable fees are not a blank check. Florida courts look at the work done, the time spent, the difficulty of the issues, and whether the request makes sense for the result. If a judge thinks the hours are padded, the judge can cut the fee request.
That’s why the right answer is “the collector pays reasonable fees if the consumer succeeds” — not “the collector pays whatever the lawyer bills.” The difference matters in real cases and in settlement talks.
Most FCCPA and FDCPA cases settle before trial. When that happens, the parties usually negotiate damages, costs, and attorney fees together. Sometimes the settlement breaks them out separately. Sometimes one number resolves everything. The settlement paperwork controls.
A real Florida case where one phone call cost the violator thousands
Here’s how this plays out in practice. A Florida client of ours had a credit card account that was already in legal collections — the legal process had started, and no further direct contact was permitted. The card issuer made one unauthorized call to her after that.
One call. That single mistake triggered the FCCPA. She recovered the full $1,000 in statutory damages — every dollar, kept by her. The card issuer paid our firm separately, on top of her recovery, because the statute says they have to.
One call. Thousands of dollars of exposure for a national creditor. A clean, fast resolution for our client without ever spending a dollar out of pocket.
That’s the model on a small case. On a larger one — for example, a Florida client who received 14 unwanted commercial text messages from an auto-dialer with no working opt-out — the math gets dramatic. Each text was potentially worth $500 to $1,500 in TCPA statutory damages, putting that case in the $7,000 to $21,000 range, with the firm’s fees paid by the violator on top.
When you might still pay something
Fee-shifting helps consumers who are pursuing claims under these statutes. It does not erase every cost in every situation.
If you are defending a debt collection lawsuit and there is no consumer-rights claim to bring back, the fee setup is different. Our firm uses tiered flat fees for that work. Our Florida collection lawsuit defense page walks through that side of the problem. If you’ve been sued, time matters — in many Florida county court debt cases you have only 20 days to respond.
The other risk: if a consumer files a weak FDCPA claim in bad faith, a court can order the consumer to pay the defendant’s fees. That is one reason we do a real case review before filing. We don’t take cases that aren’t there.
What to do this week if you think you have a case
Three concrete steps.
- Document everything. Every call: the date, the time, the number it came from, the name of the person you spoke with, what they said. Save every voicemail, every text, every letter, every envelope.
- Don’t agree to pay anything until you know whether the debt is legitimate. A small payment on a debt past Florida’s statute of limitations can restart the clock and revive the collector’s right to sue. A payment on a debt you don’t actually owe can be treated as an admission. If you’re not sure, hold.
- Call us before you pay or settle anything. No charge to talk. We’ll tell you whether there’s an FCRA, FDCPA, FCCPA, or TCPA case worth pursuing. If there is, we work on contingency. If there isn’t, you’ve spent zero dollars to find out.
The bottom line
The federal and Florida consumer-protection statutes were written to give Floridians leverage. The fee-shifting provisions exist so that leverage is real for everyone — not just for people who can afford a retainer. The only way you lose is by not finding out whether you have a case.
If a debt collector or creditor has crossed a line with you in Florida, call Ziegler Diamond Law at (727) 538-4188 for a Free Debt Freedom Strategy Session. We’ll review what’s been happening and tell you whether there’s a violation worth pursuing — and if there is, we work on contingency. The law makes them pay us. You get the recovery.
This article is general information, not legal advice. For Florida residents who think a debt collector or creditor may have violated their rights, contact Ziegler Diamond Law for a Free Debt Freedom Strategy Session at (727) 538-4188.
