Here. Excerpt: Since the 70’s, the FCRA has allowed consumers with credit reporting claims to recover up to $1,000 per statutory violation of the law, while the FDCPA allows statutory damages up to $1000 per case even when multiple violations of the law are present. It is decades-past time for an update. An annual inflation […]
Category Archives: Debt Collection
Daniel Wilf-Townsend of Chicago has written Assembly-Line Plaintiffs, Forthcoming in the Harvard Law Review. Here is the abstract: Around the country, state courts are being flooded with the claims of massive repeat filers. These large corporate plaintiffs leverage economies of scale to bring tremendous quantities of low-value claims against largely unrepresented individual defendants. Using recently developed […]
Erik Durbin and Charles J. Romeo, both of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, have written The Economics of Debt Collection, with Attention to the Issue of Salience of Collections at the Time Credit Is Granted, 16 Journal of Credit Risk (2020). Here is the abstract: This paper considers the role of policies that protect consumers from […]
On Saturday, we posted links to consumer advocates' reactions to the CFPB's new debt collection rules. Want to know how the industry sees the regulations, at least at first? Go here, to AccountsRecovery.net. Here's a hint: "there appeared to be no provisions or restrictions in the rule that should cause collection agencies to lose a […]
The new rules are here. NACA and other groups, calling the rules a "mixed bag for consumers," comment here. Consumer Reports ("CFPB rules fail to protect consumers from abusive debt collection harassment") comments here. The Bureau said it intends to issue more rules in December.
by Stephen Gardner Today, the Supreme Court held that collecting government debt by robocalling cellphones didn’t deserve special First Amendment treatment. In Barr v. American Assn. of Political Consultants, Inc., the Court held that a 2015 amendment to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which allowed cellphone robocalls to collect federal debts (such as student loans […]
Pamela Foohey of Indiana Maurer, Dalié Jiménez of Irvine, and Christopher K. Odinet of Iowa have written The Debt Collection Pandemic, California Law Review Online (2020 Forthcoming). Here is the abstract: As of May 2020, the United States' reaction to the unique and alarming threat of COVID-19 has partially succeeded in slowing the virus’s spread. […]
Pamela Foohey, Dalié Jiménez, & Christopher K. Odinet have written CARES Act Gimmicks, How Not to Give People Money During a Pandemic and What to Do Instead, online at the Illinois Law Review. Excerpt (footnotes omitted): As a short term solution, money equivalents should have begun with an immediate nationwide eviction and foreclosure moratorium, accompanied by a debt […]
by Jeff Sovern In an April 16 letter, ACA International, which describes itself as "The Association of Credit and Collection Professionals," complained that "Advocacy organizations have made several recent claims that, 'debt collectors are eager to garnish [stimulus] payments – threatening families’ access to food, shelter, and medicine, and endangering public health.'” I'm not sure […]
by Jeff Sovern The coronavirus is already having an impact on consumers and consumer protection. Some initial observations: The FTC and FDA have sent warning letters to companies reportedly making deceptive or unsupported claims about their products' ability to treat the coronanvirus. It's good that they're on the job. There have been reports of discrimination against Asians […]