ABSTRACT
This chapter presents certain possible ways of protecting consumer interests against abusive informal debt collection practices. It analyzes several decisions of Polish ordinary courts where such practices have, and sometimes have not, been found to infringe the debtor's personal rights. In examining whether a practice constitutes a violation of the collective interests of consumers, the President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection refers to two Acts: the 1993 Act on Combating Unfair Competition, and the 2007 Act on Combating Unfair Commercial Practices. Abusive debt collection practices have been recognized by ordinary courts of the first instance (the Regional Courts) and by the court of second instance (the Court of Appeal). The reasons these courts gave to justify their judicial decisions identify the type of practices that exceed the acceptable or permissible and the type of infringements of a debtor's personal rights.
