Although creditors and debt collectors often say anything they want, they cannot legally demand that you return a phone call by a certain date or time. If they do make demands like that, the best thing to do is to determine whether it’s a local debt-collection firm or an out-of-state firm. This will give you an idea of how serious the creditor’s collection efforts are getting. If it’s a local law firm, I would recommend that you hire a local attorney to respond to the debt collector and go from there.