Kate Elengold of UNC and Sophie Laing Pine Tree Legal Assistance, Inc. have written Offsetting Justice: Using Government Power To Collect Private Debts, 175 Penn. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2027). Here’s the abstract: Private creditors regularly hire third-party debt collectors to recoup debt on their behalf by contacting, coercing, and suing consumer debtors. Scholars, advocates, and policymakers […]
Category Archives: Debt Collection
Here or go to Pete Barry featured on ABC’s 20/20 & Nightline – YouTube. Painful listening. Another reason we need an actual CFPB.
Touting it as containing “the strongest protections in the country against debt collector harassment,” New York City’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) yesterday published its “Stopping Harassment and Intimidation and Ensuring Lawful Debt (SHIELD) Collection Rule.” According to DCWP, the rule “allow[s] New Yorkers to dispute their debt at any time, further limiting […]
Here, at Ballard Spahr’s Consumer Financial Law Monitor podcast. The authors are Pamela Foohey of Georgia, Robert M. Lawless of Illinois College of Law and Deborah Thorne, Professor of Sociology at the University of Idaho, and the book is about who seeks bankruptcy and what drives them to do so. Warning: you will order the […]
The Seventh Circuit issued a decision in Milam v. Selene Finance today, an FDCPA case where the Court punted on the merits but addressed standing in a manner that may be notable for practitioners. Ramona Milam sued Selene Finance, the servicer of her home mortgage, after Selene sent her a letter threatening acceleration and foreclosure if […]
Alexa Rosenbloom of Harvard has written The Pervasive and Troubling use of Coverage Attorneys in Assembly-Line Litigation, 33 Geo. J. on Poverty L. & Pol’y (2026) (forthcoming). Here’s the abstract: Debt collection cases dominate state court civil dockets in Massachusetts and across the country. Extant scholarship regarding debt collection in the courts has focused on […]
From the Third Circuit’s opinion today: J.P. Ward & Associates is a debt-defense law firm that handles many [FDCPA] §1692e(8) claims. To “scal[e]” up its practice and get more fees, named partner Joshua Ward and lawyer Travis Gordon hatched a scheme. If a client approached the firm to dispute a debt, the firm would get […]
Yesterday, the Second Circuit decided Upsolve v. James, an appeal that had different advocates for low-income consumers taking opposing positions. The case was brought by Upsolve, a nonprofit that seeks to provide free legal advice to New Yorkers facing debt-collection actions in state court via a cadre of specially trained, non-lawyer “Justice Advocates.” The problem is […]
At the end of February, the Ninth Circuit issued its decision in Six v. IQ Data International, where it reversed a district court’s dismissal of an FDCPA claim for lack of standing. The plaintiff’s claim was based on a violation of 15 U.S.C. § 1692c(a)(2), which prohibits a debt collector from directly communicating with a […]
We received the following: HOUSTON – Multiple directly impacted people and groups have asked for permission in federal court to defend the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB’s) important recent rule to remove medical debt from credit reports. The National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) is representing Texas truck driver David Deeds and District of Columbia resident […]