Consumer Law

FTC Report February 2009 On Collecting Consumer Debts - Part One

By M. Stan Herring

Debt collection is a changing industry that is influenced by technological changes and changes in the method of debt being transferred - more and more it is by debt being sold to debt buyers. In October 2007 the FTC held a workshop to discuss these changes and how the law, particularly the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), should be amended to keep up with the numerous changes since it was enacted in 1977.

After compiling the data and sifting through the arguments, the FTC released its report last month. This document is over a 100 pages long and is packed full of interesting information for consumers, consumer lawyers, collection agencies, debt buyers, and collection attorneys. We highly recommend you read this if you have any interest in the debt collection industry. In order to help, we will release a series of blog posts related to this report summarizing and providing our commentary on it.

We trust this will be helpful to you and look forward to this new series. Dealing with abusive debt collectors is a growing problem in Alabama and the best way to protect yourself is to educate yourself on your rights. If you have any questions about debt collectors or this report, please feel free to contact us.

Full post as published by Alabama Consumer Blog on March 08, 2009 (boomark / email).