It also protects accredited debt collectors from unfair competition and encourages consistent state action to protect consumers from debt collection abuses. This part serves the purposes of the FDCPA, including eliminating abusive debt collection practices by debt collectors, ensuring that debt collectors who refrain from using abusive debt collection practices are not competitively harmed, and promoting consistent state action to protect consumers against debt collection abuses. This part also prescribes requirements to ensure that certain characteristics of debt collection are fully, accurately and effectively disclosed to consumers so that consumers can understand the costs, benefits and risks associated with debt collection, in light of facts and circumstances. Finally, this part imposes record retention requirements to allow the Office to manage and carry out the purposes of the FDCPA, the Dodd-Frank Act and this part, as well as to prevent their evasion. Record retention requirements will also facilitate the oversight of debt collectors and the assessment and detection of risks for consumers.
Under this law (Title VIII of the Consumer Credit Protection Act), third-party debt collectors are prohibited from using deceptive or abusive conduct in the collection of consumer debts incurred for personal, family or household purposes. These collectors cannot, for example, contact debtors at odd hours, subject them to repeated telephone calls, threaten them with legal action that is not actually contemplated, or reveal the existence of debts to others. The FDCPA and Regulation F define “debt” as any obligation or alleged obligation of a consumer to pay money that arises from a transaction in which the money, property, insurance or services subject to the transaction are primarily intended for personal, family or household purposes, regardless of whether or not that obligation has been reduced to a judgment.
