How do you report a collection agency for abuses?

You can file abuse under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. It is enforced by the Federal Trade Commission. Contact your state Attorney General. And as also stated, go ahead and report them to the Better Business Bureau.

You can call your Attorney General's office with the information that you have acquired and get help.

The first thing I would recommend is keeping a journal of who you spoke to and when you spoke to them, if it is a phone conversation. If you have sent a letter, a copy of it and the date you sent it would be very helpful. Use this information to contact the Better Business Bureau. They can help with this. Their web site is bbb.org

Further, each state has a governing body that regulates collection agencies in that state. Remember the collection company cannot operate without a state licence. That is the way to get results, by complaning to the state regulatory body.

It's the Fair Debt Collection and Practices Act (FDCPA) not the FCRA. If the abuse is real (defined by the FDCPA), go on line to the Federal Trade Commision's web site (FTC) and file a complaint there. Too many consumers think that they know what is legal based on their own sense of what they believe is legal or not. Don't do that! If you are going to complain, be smart about it. If you want to KNOW, go look up the FDCPA (google "FDCPA") and find out. You may also want to WRITE your state attorney general's office citing the SPECIFIC COMPLAINT under the FDCPA. Don't whine and/or generalize. State what it is that is illegal and why - not your opinion. Cite the specific section(s). Know what you are talking about.

If you REALLY want to get under a bill collector's skin, get an old answering machine or other recording device that you can control manually. When they call say "this call is being recorded for quality control purposes and enforcement of the FDCPA". If he or she is not decent in Word and tone after that, you are listening to an incompetent bill collector (and there are too many of those out there). Once you have the violations recorded, you may have the beginnings of a law suit on your recorder. The more recordings you have of the same violation(s) serves to prove intent. Flagrant violations (vulgar or verbally abusive tones, shouting, threats of clearly unlawful actions) will almost certainly put you in the driver's seat for an out of court settlement. Any ambulance chasing lawyer would be happy to take 1/3 of your settlement by taking the case to the agency's legal beagles. Those guys really hate that kind of attention. I personally know of some collection agencies that routinely pay out of court settlements of around $90,000 a month. And you wondered if bill collectors made good money! Now you know.