Oak Park Real Estate & Estate Planning Blog

As many consumers in the Chicago area know, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is a federal agency that has a primary task of regulating the industry of debt collection in our country. According to a recent article from ACA International , the CFPB announced its Spring 2016 Regulatory Agenda, which includes a timetable for debt collection rulemaking. Currently, the CFPB remains in “pre-rule activities,” which must come before “the next step of the highly anticipated rulemaking,” according to the article. Why is CFPB rulemaking important, and why are consumer advocates eager to see this process move forward? To better understand, we should take a closer look at the article and the implications of the CFPB’s regulatory agenda. Implications of the Spring Regulatory Agenda While terms like “pre-rule activities,” “rulemaking,” and “comment period” can be confusing for the average Oak Park resident, one of the most important pieces of information about CFPB rulema...

Have you been getting pre-recorded calls from debt collectors at various times of day? When you do not answer those calls, do you find long, empty messages on your phone’s voicemail? If you owe debts and have been receiving these types of calls, you are not alone. However, according to a recent article in Consumerist.com , debt collection “robocalls,” as they are known, are not currently illegal. As such, consumers throughout the Chicago area often are plagued by these kinds of phone calls, and many debtors simply do not know how to make them stop. If they do not violate the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), what can we do to limit the number of robocalls being made each day? As the article explains, robocalls were not always made with such frequency. Just last fall a “must-pass federal budget bill kicked down the barricade that has prevented government debt collectors from annoying millions of consumers with auto-dialed, pre-recorded robocalls.” However, there...

In a previous post about debt collection lawsuits and a recent report from ProPublica , we mentioned that hospitals tend to be among the creditors who jump to filing lawsuits when patients do not make timely payments on their bills. We would like to explore this area a bit further by looking at a ProPublica report on statistics about medical bills and debt collection claims. If you require unexpected medical care or surgery and cannot afford to pay your bills immediately, should you be concerned about becoming the subject of a debt collection lawsuit? As the report explains, “debt collectors sue over medical bills as small as $60,” and it is important for consumers to think carefully about ways to protect themselves. In some situations, filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy may allow you to discharge your medical bills and to avoid a debt collection lawsuit filed by a hospital or other healthcare facility. An experienced bankruptcy attorney in Chicago can discuss your options...

If you owe substantial debts that have gone unpaid for several months, it is more than possible that the original creditor sold your debt to a third-party debt buyer that is now attempting to collect the money you owe. But even if your debt is still in the hands of the original creditor, you may be wondering if you need to worry about being sued over the bills you have not paid. Who gets sued most often by debt collectors ? Do you need to owe a lot of money in order for a creditor or third-party debt buyer to take the time to file a lawsuit? Or are other factors involved when debt collectors make decisions about filing lawsuits to recoup debts? According to a recent article from ProPublica , the answers to these questions might be more complicated than you would think. Indeed, according to the article, race, socioeconomic status, and geographic area all may play a role in your risk of being the target of a debt collection lawsuit . Courts Used More Frequently to Collect Cons...

What protections do student loan borrowers have to ensure that their loans will be serviced properly and that they will not become victims of debt collection scams ? According to a recent news release from the U.S. Department of Education (DOE), the DOE has partnered with the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to take action to “better support the more than 40 million Americans with federal student loans.” The recently announced further actions is supposed to build upon the 2015 Joint Statement of Principles on Student Loan Servicing, which called for “consistency in student loan servicing practices.” New Initiative for Student Loan Data on Credit Reports When the DOE made the announcement about its further plans to take action to protect student loan borrowers, it announced a “new initiative to modernize the way student loans appear on borrowers’ credit reports.” In addition, the DOE plans to develop new loan-servicing ...

According to a recent article in the Stamford Advocate , a rise in consumer debt over the last several years does not seem to be going away, and debtors continue to lodge complaints about debt collection practices. As the article points out, a study from the Urban Institute conducted in 2014 showed that 35% of adults in the United States currently have debt that they have not paid. While the average amount is not particularly high—around $5,200—the fact that so many Americans are dealing with debt collectors makes clear that we need to hold debt collection companies accountable and ensure that they abide by the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). Most Commonly Reported Complaints with Debt Collection The Alliance for a Just Society recently released a report, according to the Stamford Advocate article, in which it reviewed about two years of complaints addressed to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Although certain privacy concerns prevented the ...