diff --git a/sdk/servicebus/azure-servicebus/CHANGELOG.md b/sdk/servicebus/azure-servicebus/CHANGELOG.md
index 5e9f5001b5e1..a3415ad1f9da 100644
--- a/sdk/servicebus/azure-servicebus/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/sdk/servicebus/azure-servicebus/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -2,6 +2,8 @@
 
 ## 7.0.0b7 (Unreleased)
 
+**Breaking Changes**
+* Passing any type other than `ReceiveMode` as parameter `receive_mode` now throws a `TypeError` instead of `AttributeError`.
 
 ## 7.0.0b6 (2020-09-10)
 
diff --git a/sdk/servicebus/azure-servicebus/azure/servicebus/_common/receiver_mixins.py b/sdk/servicebus/azure-servicebus/azure/servicebus/_common/receiver_mixins.py
index 5987bf449b3b..8c9c9ff49e80 100644
--- a/sdk/servicebus/azure-servicebus/azure/servicebus/_common/receiver_mixins.py
+++ b/sdk/servicebus/azure-servicebus/azure/servicebus/_common/receiver_mixins.py
@@ -33,6 +33,10 @@ def _populate_attributes(self, **kwargs):
         self._auth_uri = "sb://{}/{}".format(self.fully_qualified_namespace, self.entity_path)
         self._entity_uri = "amqps://{}/{}".format(self.fully_qualified_namespace, self.entity_path)
         self._receive_mode = kwargs.get("receive_mode", ReceiveMode.PeekLock)
+        # While we try to leave failures to the service, in this case the errors lower down the stack are less clear.
+        if not isinstance(self._receive_mode, ReceiveMode):
+            raise TypeError("Parameter 'receive_mode' must be of type ReceiveMode")
+
         self._error_policy = _ServiceBusErrorPolicy(
             max_retries=self._config.retry_total
         )
diff --git a/sdk/servicebus/azure-servicebus/tests/test_queues.py b/sdk/servicebus/azure-servicebus/tests/test_queues.py
index 452490f0af45..c84909654b64 100644
--- a/sdk/servicebus/azure-servicebus/tests/test_queues.py
+++ b/sdk/servicebus/azure-servicebus/tests/test_queues.py
@@ -1857,11 +1857,12 @@ def test_queue_receiver_invalid_mode(self, servicebus_namespace_connection_strin
         
         with ServiceBusClient.from_connection_string(
             servicebus_namespace_connection_string, logging_enable=False) as sb_client:
-#            with pytest.raises(StopIteration):
-            with sb_client.get_queue_receiver(servicebus_queue.name, 
-                                              max_wait_time="oij") as receiver:
-            
-                assert receiver
+            with pytest.raises(TypeError):
+                with sb_client.get_queue_receiver(servicebus_queue.name, 
+                                                  receive_mode=2) as receiver:
+                
+                    raise Exception("Should not get here, should fail fast.")
+
 
     @pytest.mark.liveTest
     @pytest.mark.live_test_only