By the time an MCA company starts contacting your clients, the company has made a calculation. The calculation is that the reputational damage to your business will produce faster payment than continued calls to you. The company is correct about the damage. The company is wrong about the leverage, because that contact creates legal exposure the company would rather you did not understand.
Document Every Contact With Specificity
Before you can stop the calls, you need a record of the calls that have already occurred. Contact each customer or vendor who received communication from the MCA company and ask them to describe, in writing if possible, the date of the contact, the name or number of the caller, and the substance of the conversation. What did the caller say about your business? Did the caller request that payments be redirected? Did the caller disclose the existence of a debt or imply financial distress?
These details matter because the legal claims that follow depend on specificity. A vague allegation that “they called my customers” produces sympathy. A documented timeline with names, dates, and quoted statements produces a cause of action. There is a difference between the two, and the difference is the documentation.
It was October, the last warm week before everything turned, when one of our clients discovered that an MCA company had called six of his subcontractors in a single afternoon. Three of them pulled pending invoices. The business nearly failed. But the subcontractors had written down what was said to them, and those notes became the foundation of a settlement that recovered more than the original MCA balance.
Retain an Attorney Who Practices MCA Defense
The moment an attorney enters the picture, the communication dynamic shifts. Under federal and most state collection statutes, once a debtor is represented by counsel, the collector must direct all communication to the attorney. The calls to you stop. And the calls to your customers, which were never permissible in the first place, become indefensible once the collector has been placed on notice that counsel is involved.
Your attorney will send a formal notification to the MCA company identifying the representation and directing that all future contact be routed to the attorney’s office. This notification should be sent via certified mail and email simultaneously. The dual delivery creates a record that eliminates any future claim of non receipt.
Issue a Cease and Desist That Names Specific Contacts
A general cease and desist letter has some effect. A cease and desist letter that identifies by name each customer who was contacted, quotes the substance of what was communicated, and cites the specific statutory provisions violated has considerably more. The specificity tells the MCA company that you have done the work, that you have the evidence, and that continuation of the conduct will result in litigation that the company cannot dismiss as speculative.
The letter should reference the applicable state collection statute, any tortious interference claim arising from the contacts, and if the MCA company operates in New York, the FAIR Business Practices Act provisions that became effective in 2026. The letter should not threaten. It should inform. The distinction is one of tone, and the tone should communicate preparation rather than anger.
Notify Your Customers Directly
Your customers received a call from a stranger claiming authority over your accounts receivable. They do not know what to make of it. Some will call you and ask. Others will quietly redirect their business elsewhere, which is the outcome the MCA company intended. You need to contact each affected customer before the silence hardens into a decision.
The communication to your customer should be brief and factual. You are aware that they received a call. The call was from a collection agent, not from any court or government authority. Your attorney is handling the matter. No action is required on their part. The relationship between your business and theirs is unaffected.
This is not a comfortable conversation. It requires disclosing, indirectly, that your business has a financial dispute. But the alternative is allowing the MCA company’s narrative to stand unchallenged, and that narrative was designed to cause maximum harm with minimum accuracy.
File for Emergency Relief if Contact Continues
If the cease and desist does not produce compliance, the next step is a motion for a temporary restraining order. The motion requires a declaration from you or your attorney detailing the contacts, the harm to business relationships, and the irreparable nature of that harm. Courts have granted TROs in MCA cases where the collector’s conduct was systematic and ongoing, particularly where the contacts involved misrepresentation of the collector’s authority or the nature of the debt.
The standard for a TRO is likelihood of success on the merits and irreparable harm absent the injunction. When a collector has contacted multiple customers over a period of days or weeks, both elements are usually satisfied. The harm to goodwill and commercial reputation is, by its nature, difficult to remedy with money alone after the fact.
Preserve Everything for the Counterclaim
Each contact with your customer is a separate potential violation. Each misrepresentation made during those contacts is an independent basis for statutory damages. Each lost business relationship is a measure of actual damages. The MCA company that initiated contact with your clients did not just collect aggressively. It built your counterclaim for you, one phone call at a time.
Preserve voicemails, emails, text messages, call logs, and the written statements from your customers. Store them in a format your attorney can access. Do not edit, annotate, or summarize. The raw material is always more persuasive than the summary, and in this context, the raw material is considerable.
Six steps, and the order matters. Documentation comes first because everything else depends on it. Counsel comes second because the legal apparatus requires activation. The cease and desist comes third because it puts the MCA company on formal notice. Customer notification comes fourth because your relationships cannot wait for litigation. Emergency relief comes fifth because some collectors will not stop until a judge tells them to. And preservation comes last because the record you assemble will determine what happens after the emergency has passed, when the dispute moves from crisis to resolution.
If an MCA company has contacted your customers, the initial consultation with our office costs nothing. The conversation starts with what happened, and it ends with what comes next.
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