Daily Digest – February 20. Behind the Scenes of Kathy Kraninger’s First Visit to a Collection Agency; Content of Message Helps Defense Secure Summary Judgment in TCPA Texting Case

The Daily Digest is sponsored by Microbilt. Designed to help debt collection professionals, MicroBilt’s platform of recovery and skip tracing tools provide quick, convenient, and current data that help you prioritize and successfully track people down and collect. Keep your skip tracing and debt recovery efficient and effective! Contact us to find out about our 90 Day Try Us Program. Call 800-884-4397 or visit www.microbilt.com.

BEHIND THE SCENES OF KATHY KRANINGER’S FIRST VISIT TO A COLLECTION AGENCY

• Recently, Kathy Kraninger, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, toured a collection agency in Chicago. The trip was set up by Irwin Bernstein, the CEO of CMS Services. Irwin took the time to answer some questions from AccountsRecovery.net about the meeting and shared his thoughts about Kraninger.

CONTENT OF MESSAGE, CONSENT, HELP DEFENDANT WIN SUMMARY JUDGMENT IN TCPA TEXTING CASE

• The content of a text message sent to an individual and ensuring the proper consent was obtained before sending a message helped a company secure summary judgment after it was accused of violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

EVEN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HAS PROBLEMS WITH COLLECTION LETTERS

• Like any company, the Department of Defense makes mistakes. Sometimes, servicemembers are overpaid. But when trying to recover that extra money that showed up in a servicemember’s paycheck, the DoD’s debt collection efforts are falling short of what they are supposed to be doing, according to a report issued last week by the Government Accountability Office.

WASHINGTON HOUSE PASSES BILL AIMED AT ENDING POCKET SERVICE

• The state of Washington’s House of Representatives has approved a bill that would require collectors file a lawsuit with the courts before serving an individual with a summons and a complaint. The bill now moves to the state Senate for consideration and is one step closer to becoming law.

PLAINTIFFS COME OUT OF GATE STRONG TO START 2019: WEBRECON

• Lawsuits against collection agencies alleging violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act were all up in January, compared with December 2018, but only the FCRA was up from the first month of last year, according to data released yesterday by WebRecon.

NEW FED REPORT DETAILS CONSUMERS’ SPENDING EXPECTATIONS

• Having gathered data for more than four years, the Federal Reserve Board of New York unveiled a new report yesterday, the Survey of Consumer Expectations Household Spending Survey, which details experiences and expectations regarding how individuals and households are spending their money. For example, should a respondent suddenly see a 10% increase in his or her income, 37% of respondents would use that additional money to pay down debts, up from 36% a year earlier.

DEBT$NET INTEGRATES BILLINGTREE TECHNOLOGY

• BillingTree®, the payment problem solvers™, today announced that Debt$Net®, the Account Receivables Management (ARM) software specialist will integrate the Payrazr® solution suite into its client-facing software platform. The integration means Debt$Net ARM clients can seamlessly offer Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and online payment portals, while also benefitting from BillingTree merchant services to maintain compliance and best practices for secure payment acceptance.

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The Daily Digest is sponsored by Microbilt. Designed to help debt collection professionals, MicroBilt’s platform of recovery and skip tracing tools provide quick, convenient, and current data that help you prioritize and successfully track people down and collect. Keep your skip tracing and debt recovery efficient and effective! Contact us to find out about our 90 Day Try Us Program. Call 800-884-4397 or visit www.microbilt.com.