The Consumer Bankers Association has become the latest financial organization to submit formal comments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau regarding the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
In the letter, the trade group urges the CFPB to add language that explicitly exempts creditors and first-party servicers from the bureau’s final ruling. “Although the [notice of proposed rulemaking] states that the proposed rules are intended to apply only to third-party ‘debt collectors’ as that term is defined in the FDCPA, there are several aspects of the [proposed rule] that are likely to create confusion about whether some provisions may be applied to creditors and other parties not covered by the FDCPA,” the organization wrote.
The CBA goes on to note that lenders and servicers may still be liable for compliance infractions under the unfair, deceptive or abusive acts or practices statute of the Dodd-Frank Act and implores the CFPB to address “several ambiguous statements” that could make lenders and servicers liable for third-party debt collectors’ actions.
In addition, the CBA requests that the bureau add language to exempt lenders from call frequency limits and calls for harassment to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis rather than a “one-size-fits-all frequency limit.” The organization would also like to put the burden on the consumer of determining what days and times are inconvenient for contact, instead of having those decisions defined by the bureau.
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