Category Archives: Debt Collection

Odinet & White Paper on the CFPB’s Proposed Debt Collection Rules

Christopher K. Odinet and Roederick C. White Sr., both of the Southern University Law Center, have written Regulating Debt Collection, Review of Banking and Financial Law, 2017 (Forthcoming).  Here is the abstract: Debt collection. It often starts as a late night call carrying threats of being thrown in prison, ruin at the workplace, and trouble […]

SCOTUS Takes FDCPA Case

The case is Midland Funding, LLC v. Johnson.  SCOTUSBlog describes the issues as: (1) Whether the filing of an accurate proof of claim for an unextinguished time-barred debt in a bankruptcy proceeding violates the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act; and (2) whether the Bankruptcy Code, which governs the filing of proofs of claim in bankruptcy, […]

Former CFPB Staffer Op-Ed in Weekly Standard Criticizes Proposed Debt Collection Regs

Here. The staffer, Ronald L. Rubin, has also served as senior counsel to the House Financial Services Committee and as a partner at a big law firm.  Excerpts: Nobody should be charged, harassed, or sued for a debt they've already paid or for someone else's debt. However, the CFPB's proposed solution is a hopelessly complex […]

Something I’m Wondering About: Are Consumers Ever Better Off by Paying Time-Barred Debts?

by Jeff Sovern Consumers have no legal obligation to pay time-barred debts and suing on such a debt or threatening to sue on one violates the FDCPA.  But are consumers ever better off, aside from feeling better for meeting their obligations, by paying such debts?  When a statute of limitations is less than seven years, as is […]

USA Today Editorial: Rogue Debt Collectors

Here.  Excerpt: While ACA maintains that its 3,500 members have "long been committed to making debt collection a more consumer-friendly experience," its idea of friendly stretches credulity. While the consumer bureau has proposed that collectors limit phone attempts to reach debtors to six a week, the ACA's idea was quite different — to limit "collection call attempts to no more […]

Journalist Emails Advance Cash Services for Comment on Story and Gets Asked to Pay Phantom Payday Debt

Journalist Bob Sullivan emailed Advance Cash Services to elicit a comment on a consumer's story of how she had been dunned for a phantom debt.  He didn't get the comment, but the collector sent him an email demanding he repay a payday loan that he never took out, for $935.76.  His story is here.