When it comes to keeping up with the latest changes regarding the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), it’s easy to get caught up in the details and miss the larger picture.
The point of the act is to protect consumers from abusive debt collection practices. And while it’s great that consumers no longer get collections calls at 2 in the morning, these regulations have made it incredibly difficult for debt collection companies to contact their customers at all.
While the FDCPA contains a plethora of regulations, the 2015 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Annual Report outlines those that were most often violated throughout the year. We’ve outlined three that we believe are most important to your everyday practices.
Excessive or Inconveniently Timed Telephone Calls
The report states that during the review period, an entity had violated the FDCPA in several ways. The entity made about 17,000 calls to customers outside the correct calling hours and had contacted more than 1,000 customers repeatedly, with some customers getting as many as 20 calls during a two-day period. While this is clearly an extreme case, it’s easy to see how this could happen if you don’t have proper procedures and system controls in place.
In addition to applying the correct settings to your contact center solution so they queue at the correct time for your agents to make calls, there’s an alternative solution that could make it easier to contact your customers: have them come to you.
DialConnection offers an innovative solution called MobileDirect, which allows you to leave a silent, non-invasive voicemail on your customer’s mobile phone. The customer’s phone doesn’t ring, but they’ll find a voicemail that they can review when it’s convenient for them and then contact you to address the issue.
Faulty Training Materials Causing Prohibited Disclosures to Third Parties
The report states that during their examinations, the bureau found that several companies had trained their representatives to identify themselves and the name of their collector prior to identifying the person to whom they were speaking. The FDCPA prohibits a debt collector’s representative from identifying their employer unless specifically asked by the third party.
This mistake can be avoided by understanding the rules and by working closely with your compliance department before creating calling scripts and training materials. In this case, better training can save you a big headache.
False and Misleading Representations in Debt Collection Communications
The report states that during the review period, several debt collection companies provided false or misleading information to their customers. For example, according to the report, “One or more examinations of debt collectors performing collection services of defaulted student loans for the Department of Education” overstated the benefits of federal student loan rehabilitation and the program’s impact on the customers’ credit scores and reports.
Agents must be honest with consumers during every communication, which is easy when they know the rules and the proper tools are made available to them.
While there are many rules and regulations and knowing all of them can be a challenge, this is where a compliance department can be your saving grace.
Contact Us Today for an Evaluation
It’s easy to get caught in a cycle of non-compliance, but DialConnection is here to help you break out of that cycle so you can get back to business. We’ve worked with companies like yours that want to improve their success rate, efficiency, and customer relations.
Contact us today for a call center evaluation and allow us to help you achieve compliance.
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