Advocate Lawyer Says Consumers ‘At War’ With FCC Over TCPA Rules

Companies collecting on delinquent and defaulted student loan debts need to be more regulated when it comes to contacting those individuals who are behind on their payments, according to a published report.

To prove the point that more regulation is needed, the report looks at two cases involving Navient. One in which the company is alleged to have placed more than 2,000 calls attempting to contact an individual with $40,000 in defaulted loans who was paralyzed after graduating, and another in which the company was accused of contacting an individual when it meant to contact someone else. The report also includes comments from a consumer advocate about they are “at war” with the Federal Communications Commission over the harassment that individuals are facing from student loan collectors.

A ballooning amount of student loan debt across the country, coupled with an administration that is not likely to impose tighter restrictions on companies collecting that debt is an equation that does not add up for plaintiff’s attorneys and consumer advocates.

Said one lawyer, who is representing the paralyzed grad who has allegedly been called 2,000 times:

“They know they can harass the hell out of people and the vast majority of them will not be able to find a lawyer who can fight for them.”

Margot Saunders, a lawyer with the National Consumer Law Center, who said they are “at war” with the FCC, said that a “more responsible” method of collecting is needed, without providing any specifics about what that form of collecting would look like.

“People don’t pay their student loan debt because they’re disabled, they lost their jobs, or something bad has happened,” she said. “Not because they have tons of money and they’re seeing if they can get away with it.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, nobody from the ARM industry was quoted in the report.