A borrower's bill of rights — your rights vs the threats

You have rights, and they do not disappear because you are behind on a loan. Falling behind is a financial event — it is not a loss of your dignity, your privacy, or your legal protections. This is your one-page bill of rights: a plain-language map of what a lender and its recovery agents can do, what they cannot do, and exactly where each right is enforced. For depth on any point, follow the linked guides; to act, use the private locker to document what is happening, or check a lender to confirm who you are really dealing with.

None of this is about avoiding a genuine debt. Repaying what you can is fair and reasonable. The point is simpler and just as important: recovery must happen within the law, with your dignity intact, and free of harassment.

Where do these rights come from?

Your protections are not goodwill — they are written rules that bind every lender. The main sources are:

• The RBI Fair Practices Code (FPC) — the rulebook every bank and NBFC must follow when advertising, sanctioning, servicing and recovering a loan. Read the full explainer on the Fair Practices Code.
• RBI's guidelines on recovery of loans and engagement of recovery agents — which set the calling-hours window and the no-harassment standard, and make the lender answerable for its agents.
• The RBI Digital Lending Directions — which extend the same standards to loan apps and hold the Regulated Entity responsible for its app partners. See RBI Digital Lending Directions.
• The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP Act) — which governs how your personal data, contacts and photos may be collected and used.
• The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) — the criminal law that applies when conduct crosses into threats, extortion, or public shaming.

You can read the rules yourself on the Reserve Bank of India website.

What a lender and its agents CAN do

A lawful lender has real, legitimate options. It is entitled to:

• Contact you about the debt between 8:00 AM and 7:00 PM, in a reasonable, non-harassing way.
• Send lawful notices and pursue lawful civil recovery through the proper legal process.
• Negotiate repayment, a settlement, or a restructuring of your loan.
• Report your default to credit bureaus, which may affect your credit score.
• For secured loans, enforce the security through the legal process the law lays down (for example, the SARFAESI process for eligible secured debts) — but only by following that process, never by force.

These are the lawful channels. Notice what is not on the list: shouting, shaming, threatening, or dragging your family into it.

What they CANNOT do

This is the heart of your bill of rights. A lender or its agents may not:

• Call before 8:00 AM or after 7:00 PM, or call repeatedly to wear you down. Dozens of back-to-back calls a day is harassment, not communication. See the quick reference on permitted calling hours.
• Threaten you with arrest for non-payment, or pretend that ordinary default is a crime. It is not. (Cheque dishonour under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act and actual fraud under the BNS are separate, specific matters — not mere inability to pay.)
• Contact your family, employer, neighbours or phone contacts to shame or pressure you. Your loan is a matter between you and the lender. See can agents call your family?.
• Use abusive language, threats of violence, or sexual extortion. These are not recovery — they are crimes under the BNS.
• Publicly shame you — posting about your debt, broadcasting it to your contacts, or circulating morphed or doctored photos. This is criminal conduct, not collection.
• Harvest your contacts, gallery, location or other phone data through a loan app. A loan app has no legitimate reason to read your address book or photos. See an app demanding your contacts or gallery.
• Impersonate a court, the police, or an "RBI officer" to frighten you. RBI does not call individual borrowers to recover loans.
• Add undisclosed charges that were never set out in your loan agreement or Key Fact Statement.

If a recovery agent is doing any of these, you are not being "managed" — you are being mistreated, and the law is on your side.

The principle that ties it together: the Regulated Entity is liable

The single most empowering thing to understand is this: the buck stops with the Regulated Entity (RE) — the bank or RBI-registered NBFC that actually gave you the loan. Even if you applied through a glossy app, spoke only to a call centre, or are being chased by a "separate agency", that lender is accountable to RBI for everything done in its name.

"That was a third-party agent" describes who made the call. It is not a defence to the lender's responsibility. The RBI Fair Practices Code, the recovery-agent guidelines, and the Digital Lending Directions all make the RE answerable for the conduct of its agencies, tele-callers, Lending Service Providers and loan apps. This matters because it means you always have a real, identifiable, regulated party to complain against — never a ghost. Read more on why the NBFC is liable for its agents.

To use this, first confirm which RE is behind your loan. Its name should appear in your loan agreement, Key Fact Statement, sanction letter, and the app's disclosures. If an app hides this, that itself is worth recording. You can cross-check whether a lender is genuinely RBI-registered with the lender check tool.

Quietly build your record

Whatever right has been breached, the most powerful thing you can do is keep calm, dated evidence. You do not need to argue on the phone. You only need to document.

1. Log every call — date, time, the number, who they claimed to be, and what was said.
2. Save screenshots of every SMS, WhatsApp and in-app message, with timestamps visible.
3. Keep copies of your loan agreement, Key Fact Statement and statements.
4. Note any contact made with your family, employer, neighbours or contacts — this strengthens a privacy and harassment complaint.
5. Preserve anything that names the lender, so the RE's identity is on record.

The private locker can hold all of this securely in one place and flag breaches like out-of-hours calls automatically, so your evidence is ready if you need to complain. For a full method, see how to document harassment so it stands up legally.

Where each right is enforced

Different wrongs go to different doors. Sending a complaint to the right forum is half the battle — and almost every route below is free.

• Rule breaches — wrong hours, privacy violations, harassment, undisclosed charges. Start with the lender's grievance officer in writing, citing the specific FPC standard breached. If it is not resolved in about 30 days, escalate to the RBI Ombudsman under the Integrated Ombudsman Scheme at cms.rbi.org.in, free of cost.
• Unregistered or unauthorised lenders. Report them on RBI's Sachet portal at sachet.rbi.org.in.
• Threats, violence, sexual extortion, public shaming, or data misuse. These are criminal and do not belong before the ombudsman. Use the cybercrime helpline 1930 and cybercrime.gov.in, and the police. Sexual harassment or extortion targeting women can also be raised with the National Commission for Women.
• Service or deficiency disputes. A consumer forum may be appropriate for certain disputes about deficient service or unfair charges.
• Can't afford a lawyer? Free legal aid is a right under Article 39A of the Constitution and the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987. NALSA, your State LSA and District LSA provide a lawyer free of cost to eligible people, and Lok Adalats offer a free, final settlement route. Learn more at nalsa.gov.in or through our free legal aid guide.

Your rights at a glance

• The right to fair, non-coercive recovery — within 8 AM to 7 PM, with no harassment.
• The right to privacy — your debt is not your family's, your employer's, or your contacts' business.
• The right to dignity — no abuse, no shaming, no threats; default never strips you of basic respect.
• The right to data protection — your phone's contacts, gallery and location are not collateral.
• The right to transparency — clear terms, a Key Fact Statement, and no surprise charges.
• The right to grievance redressal — a named officer, a defined timeline, and a free regulator behind it.
• The right to free legal help — legal aid when you cannot afford a lawyer.
• The right not to be jailed for inability to pay — civil default is not a crime.

Remember

It is not a crime to be unable to repay a loan. The person pressuring you is not above the law, and the lender that sent them answers to the Reserve Bank of India. You have a clear, free, escalating path, and your dignity is not collateral. If the pressure feels unbearable, the helplines at the top of every page are free and confidential — please reach out to them or to someone you trust. You do not have to carry this alone.

This is general information, not legal advice. Rules and procedures can change, and your situation may have specific facts that matter. For advice on your own case, consider free legal aid through NALSA/DLSA or a qualified professional.