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The debt collection industry which includes debt buyers, "in-house collection departments, third-party collection agencies, and collection attorneys", recover and return "billions of dollars in delinquent debt" to "card issuers and other creditors" annually which "increase[s] the availability of consumer credit and reduce[s] its cost". [2]
A charge-off or chargeoff is a declaration by a creditor (usually a credit card account) that an amount of debt is unlikely to be collected. This occurs when a consumer becomes severely delinquent on a debt. Traditionally, creditors make this declaration at the point of six months without payment. A charge-off is a form of write-off.
The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), Pub. L. 95-109; 91 Stat. 874, codified as 15 U.S.C. § 1692 –1692p, approved on September 20, 1977 (and as subsequently amended), is a consumer protection amendment, establishing legal protection from abusive debt collection practices, to the Consumer Credit Protection Act, as Title VIII of that Act.
U.S. state laws on fair debt collection generally fall into two categories: laws which require persons who are collecting debts from consumers to be licensed, registered or bonded in order to collect from consumers in their states, and laws that protect consumers from specific unfair practices by debt collectors, which may include collection agencies and sometimes original creditors. [2]
A collection agency is a third-party agency, called such because such agencies were not a party to the original contract. The creditor assigns accounts directly to such an agency on a contingency-fee basis, which usually initially costs nothing to the creditor or merchant, except for the cost of communications.
The Fair Credit Billing Act (FCBA) is a United States federal law passed during the 93rd United States Congress and enacted on October 28, 1974 as an amendment to the Truth in Lending Act (codified at 15 U.S.C. § 1601 et seq.) and as the third title of the same bill signed into law by President Gerald Ford that also enacted the Equal Credit Opportunity Act.
Negotiating with a collection agency or junk debt buyer is somewhat similar to negotiating with a credit card company or other original creditor. However, many collection agencies (or junk debt buyers) will agree to take less of the owed amount than the original creditor, because the junk debt buyer has purchased the debt for a fraction of the ...
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for consumer protection in the financial sector.CFPB's jurisdiction includes banks, credit unions, securities firms, payday lenders, mortgage-servicing operations, foreclosure relief services, debt collectors, for-profit colleges, and other financial companies operating in the ...