Fair Debt Collection Practices Act Puns

Introduced: Sponsor: Rep. Rashida Tlaib [D-MI13]

This bill was referred to the House Committee on Financial Services which will consider it before sending it to the House floor for consideration.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib [D-MI13] is a member of the committee.

Govtrack.us Summary

The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) is the federal law protecting borrowers. It protects you from being deceived or harassed. This can apply to federal or private student loans.

You can sue to get actual damages, statutory damages up to $1000, and attorney fees.

In early 2015, the Department of Education (DOE) cancelled the contracts of five of its private collection agencies. This was after discovering that “agents of the companies made materially inaccurate representations to borrowers about the loan rehabilitation program.”

Who does FDCPA apply to? Collection agencies

When does it apply? When the loan is in default (unfortunately the FDCPA doesn't apply during delinquency)

What rights do you have?

• right to dispute the debt
• right to request the name and address of the original creditor if different from the current one
• right to not be deceived or harassed

What is illegal for collection agencies? If a collection agency...

• Uses obscene, profane, or abusive language
• Communicates with the borrower at unusual or inconvenient times or places. Times from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. are generally considered convenient, but daytime contacts with a consumer known to work a night shift may be inconvenient.)
• Contacts a borrower at work if the collector should know that the employer prohibits personal calls, or contacting the borrower at other inconvenient places, such as at a friend’s house or the hospital
• Contact a borrower represented by a lawyer, unless the lawyer fails to respond to collector
• Calls repeatedly and frequently to annoy, abuse, or harass the borrower
• Calls without disclosing the collector’s identity
• Uses the DOE's name and/or address on the envelope to deceive borrowers into thinking they are communicating with the DOE
• Sends a letter that with an incorrect date on when the garnishment is going to occur
• Sends a letter with both valid and invalid defenses to garnishment
• Sends demand letters persistently threatening garnishment without legal action. (This is because they imply the borrower won't have any notice or they won't have the opportunity to defend themselves)
• Threatens to garnish with no intention to actually follow through
• Misleads borrowers with respect to repayment options, such as claiming that borrowers must make payments in order to consolidate or requiring “good faith” payments before borrowers can “apply” to rehabilitate
• Fails to comply with HEA regulations regarding garnishm

(NC, USA) Background: My mother and I own two houses located next to each other. In some cases, family members (my youngest son and his family in particular) have lived at either location, not necessarily updating his drivers license info as he does.

Yesterday, my mailbox (I am living next door to my son) received a letter addressed to him. It was addressed to my son using a label. Also attached to the front of the envelope is another label, this one proclaiming: "ACCOUNT PLACED FOR COLLECTION". It obviously appears to be a collection notice.

I do not know, nor do I want to know, whether the debt is accurate, but I used to work in a business that had to do its own collections. We were trained on the do's and don'ts of the FDCPA, specifically on what we could say and print on both the notice and the envelope. This labels seems to be in violation of what I was trained.

A plain text reading of the FDCPA would seem to indicate that this is a violation of the Act, however the Act does include an exclusion for states that have their own related Act. I am supposing that this is to allow states to "raise the bar" and make things more strict. I don't believe that it allows a state to lower the bar. It is my understanding that in such cases, Federal law creates the floor, and states can build from there, but since I am not an attorney, what do I know.

A plain text reading of North Carolina law seems to have no specific reference to this issue, or any exclusion that would allow a government entity to ignore the law. You see, this letter was sent by the local county Attorney's Office.

Now, I don't want to waste my son's time or an attorney's time, but this really has me upset. My son isn't perfect (who is), but to have his business plastered on the front of an envelope has me a bothered. We live in a rural county and it is one of those "everyone knows each other" scenarios. I don't think it's anyone's business if he has a debt except his. Even me now knowing it bothers me.

Anyway, I don't if there is anything to pursue. If nothing else, I want this practice to end to save others from the embarrassment. Any advice?

Hello,

We are a small business that is having an issue with a retail customer who issued two charge backs, months apart.

The first time, they ordered on our website then issued a charge back weeks later saying the package was never delivered. Soon after, they attempted to buy another thing on our website but was caught and cancelled by our accounting department.

Second charge back was in person at a week long event. We were the vendor and the person signed a credit card receipt at our booth. The reason for this charge back as stated on the dispute notification said "Vendor (us) said transaction did not go through". That makes no sense seeing how the person signed the receipt.

We sent the receipt as our proof of purchase but lost the dispute.

I looked up this person online and found the person was a lawyer in the state of CA. I attempted to call the person office to see if they could transfer me over but the person was not in the office at the time. I emailed the persons work email asking her to contact me. She responded saying that my harassment was in violation of violation of the California Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.

Is she correct? Did we step too far trying to contact her at work?

Edit* can we report her to the CA bar association?

In case you missed it, this week the supreme Court ruled that debt buyers are not covered by the Fair debt collection practices act as they are technically creditors and not debt collectors. So all the rules about harassment and bad collection practices that Dave always talks about are no longer illegal for them to do.

I haven't been able to listen to every hour this week so I was just curious if he brought it up.

https://consumerist.com/2017/06/12/supreme-court-protections-against-debt-collectors-dont-apply-to-banks-that-purchase-defaulted-loans/

"The 'FDCPA', was passed by Congress in response to abusive conduct by collection agencies, and concern that the abuses were causing an increase in the filings of personal bankruptcies. The purpose of the Act is to provide guidelines for collection agencies which are seeking to collect legitimate debts, while providing protections and remedies for debtors."

http://www.expertlaw.com/library/consumer/fair_debt_collection.html

Edit: This is located in South Carolina

I am disputing a bill from a hospital that I (as well as my personal doctor) believe was botched. After numerous phone calls about the bill I sent a letter to the hospital's office stating that I did not want to be called regarding the supposed debt and any item on my credit report is to be marked disputed (referencing the fair debt collection practices act). At this point the hospital stopped all calls and limited contact to mail only.

The problem is that when the hospital sent the bill to a debt collector, apparently they did not pass on the information to the debt collector, and I have had numerous calls from a debt collector that did not give me any option to opt out of the calls.

I finally looked up the debt collector and called their main office to tell them I did not want to be contacted. I also filed a complaint with the BBB and CFPB.

The debt collector's response was this:

"The consumer's complaint is he advised <hospital name> not to contact him any further via telephone prior to them placing the account with us. We have no control over how our clients place accounts with us."

That doesn't seem right to me? You would think that there would be some process to record pertinent information between the two parties.

From what I understand, the FDCPA states that unsolicited phone calls can have punitive damages associated with them. Would either company (the hospital or debt collector) be liable for these calls?

Any advice on how to handle this would be helpful!

Short version(tldr): Under the Fair Debt Collection Practices act § 809: The debt collector must tell the debtor: 1) the amount of the debt, 2) the name of the creditor, 3) the fact that unless the consumer disputes the validity of the debt within 30 days, the debt will be considered valid, and 4) that the consumer can ask for verification of the debt. Source

My debt collectors did not inform me about 3 or 4, leading to me not disputing the 33.33% collection fee that they added on.

The 33.33% collection fee is also a violation of the FDCA according to federal courts source 1 source 2

Long Version:

I was contacted by a debt collector a few months ago about I debt that I owe to a university I have since transferred from. They first contacted me on the phone and told me what I owed them, I actually thought it was a scam since I hadn't gotten any mail from them or written communication, and the amount of money they claimed I owed was a completely different amount than what I owed to the university. All they initially told me was that the conversation was being recorded, they were a debt collection agency and that this was a call about collecting the debt from my university. I asked for the name of their company and told them I'd have to call my university to confirm that this was legitimate since I thought it was odd that I hadn't received formal written communication and I can't just give anyone who calls me up money or information on myself. I believe that I asked them if they could mail be the information about the debt, and they just said it's available online.

They told me they were calling from ConServe and I was able to log into my account on their website and see that they reason the amount had changed was because they had tacked on a 33.33% collection fee, but I did confirm with my school that they had passed the debt owed on to ConServe. I spoke to them 2 more times after this and tried to tell them that I couldn't pay this extra 33.33% but they said that wasn't an option, and told me

Hello, folks.

Recently, I was taken to small claims court by a collections agency over a medical bill. I agreed to pay the bill in installments in court, and we filed the paperwork that says as much.

A couple of weeks later, I receive a reminder letter in the mail for this, which I'm okay with the idea of. It's the execution of this letter that is questionable.

Front of envelope had the agency's logo and post office box on it, but through the front window of the envelope, the medical facility's name and how much I owe, with clear verbiage defining this are both visible.

I found out about this via email from the USPS, as I receive daily notification and scans of my mail. This means the letter traveled the whole way like this.

I feel that anyone who looks at the letter could tell it was an attempt to collect a debt, and further, they can identify who this debt is owed to. It feels like a violation of my privacy, but do I have any recourse in this matter?

Thanks for reading.

I owe a debt and the collector is constantly calling me. It recently came to my attention that under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, they are not allowed to call before 8AM. They do, usually around 7AM, and again around dinner time.

They have also sent no written notice of said debt. Which supposedly they're supposed to do.

What are my options as far as pursuing the fact that they are violating this?

Introduced: Sponsor: Rep. Ayanna Pressley [D-MA7]

This bill was referred to the House Committee on Financial Services which will consider it before sending it to the House floor for consideration.

Rep. Ayanna Pressley [D-MA7] is a member of the committee.

Govtrack.us Summary

Introduced: Sponsor: Rep. Al Lawson [D-FL5]

This bill was referred to the House Committee on Financial Services which will consider it before sending it to the House floor for consideration.

Rep. Al Lawson [D-FL5] is a member of the committee.

Govtrack.us Summary

Introduced: Sponsor: Rep. Lacy Clay [D-MO1]

This bill was referred to the House Committee on Financial Services which will consider it before sending it to the House floor for consideration.

Rep. Lacy Clay [D-MO1] is a member of the committee.

Govtrack.us Summary

Introduced: Sponsor: Rep. Steve Cohen [D-TN9]

This bill was referred to the House Committee on Financial Services which will consider it before sending it to the House floor for consideration.

1 cosponsor is on that committee.

Govtrack.us Summary