When it comes to what scares or excites members of the accounts receivable management industry, court cases and laws were what drove the bus in 2022. Combing through nearly 1,300 articles that were posted in 2022, here are the 10 that were the most popular.
10. Non-Profit Sues Companies for Allegedly Engaging in Sewer Service
March 17
Sewer service was a topic that was much more popular several years ago, but the phrase is still sufficiently dangerous enough to perk ears and pique interest when claims are made. In this case, a group of defendants were accused of violating the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act for allegedly filing false proofs of service in order to obtain default judgments against consumers. Read the full story here.
9. Debt Buyer Sued by CFPB Plans ‘Vigorous’ Defense
January 11
Enforcement actions and lawsuits from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau generate interest from members of the collection and recovery industry, but hearing someone who has been sued announce publicly that they are planning to fight the lawsuit definitely gets people’s attention. Read the full story here.
8. Bill Introduced in California to Lower Judgment Interest Rate, Restrict Renewals
March 4
Judgment interest was a very popular topic in a number of states in 2022 and California was no different. A proposal to lower the judgment interest rate to 3% from 10% raised a lot of interest among readers of AccountsRecovery.net. Read the full story here.
7. Judge Invokes Hunstein Rulings in Dismissing FCRA Case for Lack of Standing
July 25
Not all third parties are created equally, judges have ruled. In this case, sending factually inaccurate information to a credit reporting agency is not the type of public sharing that is needed for a plaintiff to have standing to sue, ruled a New York federal judge. Read the full story here.
6. Debt Buyer Sues Citi for ‘Bait and Switch’ When Selling Portfolios
January 18
A true David vs. Goliath story where a debt buyer accuses one of the largest financial services companies in the world of promising to sell certain credit card accounts only to turn around and sell ones where the chance of recovery is significantly less. Read the full story here.
5. Berkeley College to Cancel $20M in Unpaid Loans, Revamp Collection Procedures in Settlement with NYC
March 8
Every year, there are one or two stories that make this list the baffle me, and this is one of those stories. Canceling $20 million of student loans is kind of a big deal, but there were other enforcement actions in student lending that were bigger in 2022, and dealt with an area bigger than New York City. Nonetheless, this action generated a ton of interest. Read the full story here.
4. Equifax Confirms Issues with Some Credit Scores
June 6
Re-reading this reminds me of that famous line — you had one job to do… Equifax announced in June that a coding error had resulted in millions of credit scores being artificially lowered for about a month. So if you were denied for credit in March or April, you know who to blame. Read the full story here.
3. Colorado Enacts Medical Debt Collection Bill
June 9
This law banned healthcare facilities from placing unpaid accounts for collections unless the facilities were in compliance with federal price transparency guidelines — of which only 6% were at the time the bill was signed into law. Making the law more problematic was a private right of action for any individual who had their account sent to collections unlawfully. Read the full story here.
2. Credit Reporting Agencies Announce Changes to Medical Debt Credit Reporting
March 18
This announcement sent massive shockwaves through the entire industry and called into question just how companies collecting healthcare debts were going to be able to continue to do so. All eyes are on March, where the credit reporting agencies are supposed to stop including medical debts under $500 on consumers’ credit reports to see if that impacts repayment rates. Read the full story here.
1. Appeals Court Dismisses Hunstein for Lack of Standing
September 8
For the second straight year, a development in the Hunstein case was the most popular article on AccountsRecovery.net. The ruling that many people expected — determining the plaintiff lacked standing to sue in federal court — wasn’t the ruling that people were hoping for — actually saying whether using a letter vendor constituted a third-party disclosure or not — but it did bring an end to this case, at least at the federal level. Read the full story here.