CFPB FinEx webinar: Debt Collection Resources



NWX-CFPB HQ
Moderator: Irene Skricki
February 23, 2017
1:00 P.M. CT


Operator:	Welcome and thank you for standing by.  At this time, all participant lines are in a listen-only mode.  After today's presentation, you will have the opportunity to ask questions over the phone and you may do so by pressing Star then 1 at that time.  Today's conference call is being recorded.  If you have any objections, please disconnect now.

	I would like to introduce your host for today, Ms., (Irene Skricki).  Ms. (Skricki), you may begin.

(Irene Skricki):	Great, well thank you very much and welcome everyone to our FinEx webinar today.  Our topic is debt collections stories and resources.  What I'm going to do initially is to run through a few slides describing FinEx so everyone's in the same place and then we'll go into our topic for the day.  

	So, first, I want to note that we do our standard disclaimer which is, this presentation's being made by a CFPB representative on behalf of the Bureau, but it does not constitute legal guidance, interpretation, or advice from the Bureau and any opinions or views stated by the presenters are the presenter's own.  

	And, just quickly, I think probably most of you on this webinar know who we are, but a word of introduction:  the CFPB is a relatively new federal agency whose objective is to help consumer finance markets work by making rules more effective, consistently and fairly enforcing those rules, and empowering consumers to take more control over their economic lives.  And, it's that last part about empowering consumers which is what our CFPB Financial Education Exchange is all about and what this webinar is about today.  We educate consumers, and we also enforce, supervise, and study as part of the work of the CFPB.  

	Just quickly, so you know where financial education sits in the Bureau, we have a division that does consumer facing work, so, not our regulatory side or market side, but our consumer facing side, and within that division we have several offices.  One is financial education which is where FinEx sits, working to educate and empower all consumers.  

	And, we also have special population offices, like Empowerment, Older Americans, Servicemember Affairs, and Students.  This Webinar, in particular, we're doing jointly with Consumer Engagement, which is the office that both reaches out to consumers and manages our digital properties.  So, we are delighted to be doing this together with them.  

	To let everybody know what FinEx is, in case you're not in it -- if you get a regular monthly email saying FinEx news and updates, you are in FinEx.  If you do not, you may want to join.  We are essentially a network of organizations and different types of entities that are doing financial education. The CFPB shares our materials with that group of financial educators and tries to get ideas and thoughts and feedback through surveys and meetings with financial educators and then also helps to connect financial educators to each other.  

	And, so, to date, we have over 2000 people who have signed up for FinEx.  We do regular convenings, and, this I believe is our 22nd webinar.  Almost all of them have been recorded and can be listened to if you want to catch up on previous topics on our webpage.  

	And, again, I hope if any of you are not in FinEx, you'll sign up.  I'll show you how in a minute.  We have a resource inventory that describes all the different tools and resources for financial educators.  It's available online, as well.  All of which can be found at our Resources for Financial Educators webpage.  

	The URL is consumerfinance.gov/adult-financial-education.  Not the catchiest URL -- but it will get you to our page.  And that's where you can see both archived webinars and you can see all the different tools and resources that the Bureau has either here or through links through that page.  

	So, just want to encourage you all to use all of our materials as appropriate.  And then, we also have a LinkedIn discussion group on financial education.  

	If anybody wants to join that, there's information up on this slide.  You can also find it on the adult financial education page.  It's where we post our resources.  You're also welcome to post your resources, thoughts, whatnot, so, an open invitation to everyone to join that.  

	So, that's my usual information on FinEx.  I actually realize, I'm just going to quickly go back because I accidentally jumped over this slide. And I’m putting this one up because it shows you how to sign up for FinEx at the bottom, for those of you who are looking at the WebEx, it says to sign up email cfpb_finex@cfpb.gov, cfpb_finex@cfpb.gov, and that, again, many of you are already know that because that's where you're getting newsletters from, but if anybody wants to sign up, just send an email there.  We will put that up again at the end of the webinar.

	So, I am very excited, now, to turn to our topic for the day, which is debt collection stories and resources.  We have a very interesting couple of presentations.  

	The first thing we're going to is hear from (Leslie Parish) from our Division of Research, Markets, and Regulations, who will fill us in on the findings of a debt collection survey.  And then, secondly, we will hear from (Kristen Dohn) in the Consumer Engagement Office, and she will tell us about some of the debt collection stories that we've heard from consumers.  

	We're actually going to do something new today.  We're going to show you a couple of short videos that are actual consumer stories, which I think will be fun to listen to and helpful.  And then, she will also talk about some of the resources we have to help financial educators who have clients who are dealing with debt collection issues.  And then, we'll open up for questions.

	I'll just note, if you have any burning questions or clarifying questions, you can use the Q&A function on the WebEx to let me know.  I will be monitoring that and, if necessary, I can jump in and ask your question.  Also, at the end, you can use that.  But then when we break for questions, closer to the end, again -- as the operator said -- you can ask voice questions and we'll give you additional instructions at that time.

So, with all that, I am going to turn this over to (Leslie).  (Leslie Parish), thank you for joining us.  The floor is yours.

(Leslie Parish):	Thanks, (Irene).  So, first I want to give some background on debt collection before we dive further into some details.  We estimate at the Bureau that more than 70 million people -- about one of every three US consumers -- were contacted by either their creditor or a debt collector seeking to collect on a debt within the past year.  And, I say creditor or debt collector because banks and other original creditors can choose to collect their own debts when they go unpaid or they can hire a third-party debt collector to do so.  

	Now, in addition, creditors may also sell a debt in collections to a debt buyer.  And, that debt buyer, in turn, could either collect on the debt, hire another debt collector to do so, or sell the debt again to another debt buyer down the chain.  And, we estimate that there are around 6,000 debt collection firms operating in the US currently.  

	Turn to the next slide.  So, in January, we released a report called Consumer Experiences with Debt Collection.  And it presents the findings from a survey where we asked consumers whether they had been contacted about a debt in collection by either their creditor or a debt collector.  And, if they had, details about that experience.  

	So, some of the things we asked them about were the type of debt that they had in collections; whether they believed they owed the debt they were being contacted about.  And, if so, if they believed the amount the collector said they owed was correct; whether they were sued; how they wanted to be contacted by their creditor or collector about the debt collection; and, just, generally, how they felt about their interaction with the creditor or debt collector.

	We also collected information about these consumer’s demographics and financial characteristics, like their credit for an income.  And, at the bottom of the slide, there's a link that will take you to a page on our Web site where you can download the report and look at an infograph that summarizes some of the key findings.  

	The findings from this report are nationally representative of all consumers with a credit record.  And that's because we used the Bureau's Consumer Credit Panel to get our sample of consumers who were contacted to participate in the survey.  The Consumer Credit Panel is a randomly identified sample of credit records from one of the big credit reporting agencies.

	Drawing our sample from this panel had the advantage of allowing survey responses to be paired with credit report information.  So, we were able to get a better sense of the consumer's full financial picture.  

	The survey was conducted between December 2014 to March 2015, so, about two years ago from today.  And, if you want to take a look at the actual questions we asked, the full survey instrument is in the appendix of the report you can download.

	So, getting started on the findings:  first, we found that about a third of consumers, 32%, reported being contacted by a creditor or a debt collector about a debt in collection over the past year.  And, it was typical for these consumers to say that they were contacted about more than just one debt.  

	So, you can look at the pie chart breakdown on this slide and you'll see that 57% of consumers with a debt in collection said they were being contacted about two to four debts.  And another 16% of consumers with a debt in collection were being contacted about five or more debts.

	We asked consumers who reported having a debt in collection what type or types of debts they were being contacted about.  And, we asked them about those loans -- such as credit cards or student loans -- as well as past due bills such as, those for cell phones or a doctor's bill.  

	So, on this slide, we're looking at a breakout of different types of loans consumers with one or more debts in collection said they were contacted about.  And, as you can see, credit cards were the most frequently cited, then followed by student loans.  Loans secured by an asset -- such as a car loan or a mortgage or a home equity line of credit -- are next, and that was followed by pay day loans.

	Next slide.  So, this slide shows the breakout of the different types of past due bills consumers with one or more debts in collection said they were contacted about.  Medical bills are most prominent followed by telecommunications bills and those included things like phones, cable, or internet bills.  

	And then, further down the list, you see bills for utilities, for unpaid taxes, or some sort of legal judgement, and then rent.  And, since many consumers that had a debt in collection said that they had actually more than one debt in collection -- as we saw before -- they may have cited multiple types of loans or unpaid bills which is why all of these numbers add up to far more than a hundred percent.

	So, next, we asked consumers who said they were contacted about a debt in collection, whether there were any inaccuracies about one or more of these collections.  And, specifically, we asked these consumers whether one or more of these debts was something that they did not believe they owed, whether they thought it might be by a family member instead of them.  Or, whether they believed that it was their debt but the amount that the creditor or collector was attempting to collect was wrong.  

	So, these categories aren't necessarily mutually exclusive since the consumer who doesn't believe they owed the debt, may also know that it's a debt owed by their family member.  So then, they would check both of those options, essentially.  Or, they may have had different issues with multiple debts since many of these folks had multiple debts in collections.  

	Overall, just over half of consumers -- 53% -- with a debt collection cited at least one of these issues.  Now, having said this, we later asked consumers if they actually disputed a debt with their creditor or debt collector for these or other reasons.  And far fewer reported actually doing so directly to their creditor or debt collector.

	Next slide.  Finally, 15% of consumers with a debt in collection said that they had been sued in an effort to collect on the debt.  Most of the time, these consumers reported that they did not show up for the hearing with just a quarter of consumers who were sued reporting that they did so in our survey.  

	So, those are some of the findings I wanted to highlight today.  The report goes into more detail on these and other findings.  So, if you're interested in a closer look, I'd encourage you to download it from our website and I'm happy to take questions later on the report as well.  Thanks very much.

(Irene Skricki):	Great, thank you very much, (Leslie).  And, again, if people have any immediate questions, you can use the Q&A function.  I'll just note, a few of you have already asked if you can get the slides sent to you and we usually do that.  If you email the FinEx email address, we'll send you a PDF of the presentation.  Again, that email is cfpb_finex@cfpb.gov, and you'll see that later on the screen. If people want that just email that address and I will send it to you.  

	Okay.  Now, we've heard a little bit of background about debt collection and some consumer experiences around that.  Now, we're going to turn to (Kristen Dohn) from our Consumer Engagement Office, who will talk about our consumers -- our debt collection stories and some resources related to that.  Okay, (Kristen), you're on.

(Kristen Dohn):	Thank you, (Irene).  So, we have collected a couple of stories on debt collection.  The CFPB has an "Everyone has a Story" section of our Web site.  This specific set of stories relates specifically to debt collection.  And we collected these to help illustrate consumer's experiences as they worked through debt collection issues.  They highlight consumer stories where they said that they were sued for debts that weren't owed.  So, they were contacted too often or felt threatened with jail by debt collectors.  

The first story I want to share with you is (Danieshia) and, if you can play that story now.  

(Irene Skricki):	Sure, and just one second, I have to switch to a screen share.  So, you'll see a couple things flash by here.  But if you all just hold on, I will switch over to (Danieshia's) story.  Here we go, okay.

((VIDEO))

(Danieshia):	After I lost my job, I attempted to pay for my car loan as much as I could with the money that I had from unemployment.  Once my unemployment check ran out I wasn't able to pay for it anymore.  So, it became delinquent and it was sold to a debt collector.  Several debt collectors began to call but I wasn't able to set up any payment plans because I didn't have any income.  There were a few that were calling and making threats.

	I had one that was telling me that I was going to jail.  And, that she was a detective.  And they were coming to my house and I was going to go to jail for car-napping.  I was terrified to hear threats like that because I'm a single mom and to hear that my freedom could be in jeopardy of me not being able to see my son for any amount of time, terrified me.  No debt collector should threaten me with jail time.

((END VIDEO))

(Irene Skricki):	Okay, and now, I am going to just pop back to the PowerPoint.  So, thank you.

(Kristen Dohn):	We can actually just push for (Bernadette) if you want, (Irene).  

(Irene Skricki):	I can go straight to (Bernadette), okay.  And, now we're going to show you a second one.  (Bernadette's) story.

((VIDEO))

(Bernadette):	I had taken out the pay day loan just to have some extra cash when I was facing a little bit of hardship.  Just bills were high, car repairs, and that seemed as though it was an easy fix.  But it turned out not to be due to the high payments, which led to the problem.  

	My name is (Bernadette), and I'm from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Well, I had been contacted by a collection agency.  They had initially called my work.  

	Shortly after that, they contacted my dad, my two sisters, and one of my friends.  They had said they had a legal complaint in their office.  And they were looking for information as to my whereabouts; otherwise, they would be going to the district court to file papers on this matter.  That was the first time that I had received a phone call.  It was very overwhelming for them to contact my family.

	I didn't want anybody to know of this personal matter, not to mention that when they contacted my work, I cannot receive phone calls for personal matters.  The debt collector wasn't very helpful.  

	I found out about the CFPB by going online.  Once I submitted my complaint, there was pretty much an initial response.  And the original company that the debt was with had reached out to me with a resolution in which I no longer had to deal with the collection agency that was harassing me.

	The collection agency did invade my privacy by reaching out to my family and my friends and leaving my personal information on their answering machines.  Dealing with financial matters can be really stressful.  You do not have to face it alone.  The CFPB is there to help you.  You have the right to fair debt collection practices.

((END VIDEO))

(Irene Skricki):	All right, let me go back to the PowerPoint.  Thank you for bearing with us through that.  So, we heard (Danieshia's) story and (Bernadette's) story.  And now, I'll turn it back to (Kristen) to tell us a little bit more about those stories and how others can kind of participate in this process.

(Kristen Dohn):	All right, thanks, (Irene).  So, for anyone, if you have any issues watching those videos -- if they froze up for you at all -- we do have a collection of them on our Web site and the links to their pages are included in the PowerPoint when you get that later.  

	The importance of these consumer stories is that the more we hear from people, the more insight we gain into what's happening in the financial marketplace and how it is effecting everyday people.  And, these shared experiences help us inform our - how we work to protect consumers and create a fair marketplace.

	We hope to collect more stories from people and also intermediaries that work with those people facing these issues.  And, we need your help to collect some of these stories.  

	Next.  So, when thinking about what makes a story, we want people to be able to tell the story however they feel most comfortable.  Currently, all of the stories on our Web site, good or bad, are video interviews.  But they don't have to be.  We can share written stories -- with or without photo -- but photos do help connect real people to the issues -- good or bad -- and we know that privacy can be a concern.  

	So, we'll work with people on however they feel they can be comfortable telling their story.  And their photos don't have to include faces and we can also share stories through a series of close or audio recording.  As you can see, in (Bernadette's) story, she wasn't comfortable with video.  But she did like the idea of photography, so, we used photos and put them to video.  But it could also just be a written story with photos embedded on the Web page.  

	So, if anyone is interested in submitting a story to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, there's a link on this slide here, help.consumerfinance.gov/app/tellyourstory and that's where you can submit some of the details.  Once we submit - collect stories, we can then look through them and reach out to anybody to work through the details on their story.  Next.

(Irene Skricki):	Kristen, before I advance the slide, can you give us a little context on how we use the stories?  I know for this audience, people may want to show these to their clients who then may feel like they're not so alone and they have options to get help.  There may be other purposes.  You want to just give people a little sense of that?

(Kristen Dohn):	Sure, I mean, we want people to feel like they're not alone.  No matter what they go through with finances, there are tons of other people who have these same issues and by sharing these stories, it shows people that they're not alone.  They're not the only one.  And, in addition, what we've done with these new debt collection stories, is that we've added resources to each of their pages.

	So, on (Bernadette's) page, we have a couple of questions from our Ask CFPB FAQ database that relate to someone who might have similar issues.  We also shared some of the Data Points reports that align with her story as well as other things that people can access from CFPB that might help them work through a similar issue.  And, all of that is within our five debt collection story pages.

(Irene Skricki):	So, should - I'll go to the next slide.  I just want to say, a few people have used the Q&A function to mention that, I guess, the video froze, it didn't here.  But it must be something about the transmission.

(Kristen Dohn):	Yes, it did.

(Irene Skricki):	Okay, that's interesting because it didn't here.  So, my apologies again.  You can see them all online and, also, we'll just - everyone project to speaking, I guess there's some sound quality issue for a few people.  I hope that's not most of you.  All right, let me go to the next slide. 

(Kristen Dohn):	So, another resource that we also created recently was the debt collection portal page.  And, this is a work in progress.  But the first round of this page we used our Ask CFPB questions to pull together what we felt worked best to give people an overview of questions they might have in debt collection.  Learning how to work through it, understanding key terms, common issues they may face, and how to take action to solve their problems.  It's broken down by a few key sections.  We have, get started, understand your situation and take action.  And then, we also have a link to Ask CFPB where we have all of our debt collection questions in there.

	And that can be found at www.consumerfinance.gov/consumer-tool/debt-collection.  Next slide.  

(Irene Skricki):	Okay.

(Kristen Dohn):	In addition to the portal page, one of the featured items are our sample letters that people can use if they're not quite sure how to respond.  We've got letters that help someone who might need more information, wants to let the collector know that they do not owe the debt.  They might request for contact to stop.  Or while they dispute, to contact through their lawyer.  Or to specify how the debt collector can contact them.  

	It - these letters aren't legal advice.  But they are helpful to help consumers if they're not quite sure how to proceed.

	Next.  We also have our consumer complaints.  So, if a person cannot solve their issues, they can go to the consumer complaint database and submit the complaint.  And the CFPB will work to forward the complaint to the company and work to get a response from them.  And that can be found at www.consumerfinance.gov/complaint.  

	Lastly, on our debt collection portal, on the right side of the page, there are links to current resources.  Two of which are, “Know Your Rights When the Debt Collector Calls,” and “To Access if You Can't Pay Your Credit Cards”.  These two-page documents have some quick information and tips for consumers that you're welcome to hand out to them and we also have links to those from the debt collection portal page.  

(Irene Skricki):	And, I'll just jump in here.  This is (Irene).  These are also things you can order off of our Web site.  There's a link to an order site you can find that on that adult’s finance education page as well.

	And you can actually order some of these resources in bulk.  So, if you wanted to get them to hand out to your clients - can print them yourself, but you can also often order them.  Next slide, (Kristen), yes?

(Kristen Dohn):	Yes.  

(Irene Skricki):	Okay.

(Kristen Dohn):	And, turning it back to you, (Irene).

(Irene Skricki):	Okay.  Great, well thank you (Kristen) and (Leslie).  That was some great information.  I think between the study -- which gives us some insights into to some degree the extent of people who are dealing with debt collection issues -- and probably all of you who are financial educators are seeing at least a little bit of that in your work, I would guess.  

	And then, the stories, which between the two you saw -- or at least saw part of before the screen wasn't working so well -- there are more and we urge you, again, to think about those potentially as resources to share with the people you work with.  Also, to potentially share stories yourself, or have your clients share stories.  

	And the, the resources we just saw around asking CFPB, the debt collection portal page, submit a complaint, and some of the handouts, and sample letters.  We hope that's a start in helping you deal with what I know can be a difficult issue for all of you who are working with clients facing these issues.

	So, for those of you on the screen, I did put up the CFPB FinEx email address -- cfpb_finex@cfpb.gov.  So, either sign up for the email newsletter, FinEx.  Or to ask for the PowerPoint deck.  Or ask any other questions you might have.  And then, I just put up the URL for the adult financial education URL where you can find all of our financial education resources and also the LinkedIn group name is up there, as well.  

	So, let's turn to questions. I'm going to let the operator tell you how to ask voice questions and then, once he's done that, I will start to read some of the Q&A WebEx questions that have come in.  There's been actually a number of them here.  So, operator, you want to give instructions on voice questions?

Operator:	Certainly.  At this time, if you would like to ask a question over the phone, please press Star 1, please unmute your phone, and record your name when prompted.  If at any time, your question has been answered while you're waiting in queue, you can remove your request by pressing Star then 2.  Once again, that is Star 1 if you would like to ask a question over the phone.

(Irene Skricki):	Great.  Okay, so I'm going to ask a couple of the questions that I see here and then we'll see if any voice questions come in.  First, I think this is for you, (Leslie).  What year - or when was the -- for your survey instrument -- survey data, what year was the consumer data collected?  2014, she asks, or what was the - what's the year is that from?

(Leslie Parish):	Yes, so, it was collected over a four-month period.  It was collected between December 2014 to March 2015.  So, people were responding to the survey about two years ago now.

(Irene Skricki):	Great.  All right.  I'm going to ask - I'm going to read a few of the other questions that I'm seeing.  I think some we either may not be able to answer or may refer people to the website.  

	Why are debt collectors allowed by law to attempt to obtain money on debts which have expired under the Statute of Limitations or have been written off?  And, I think there's an answer to that in our Ask CFPB Questions.  Is that correct?  Either (Kristen) or (Leslie).

(Kristen):	Yes, we do have an answer or a question that addresses Statute of Limitations in Ask CFPB read.  It's question 1389, so, if you go to consumerfinance.gov/askcfpb/1389, what is the Statute of Limitations?  You can see there, that some of those answers reflect - it's a little bit verbose for me to read through.  But essentially, even if the Statute of Limitations has expired, a court can still award judgement against someone if they don't raise the Statute of Limitations as defense.  

	And, in most states, debt collectors can still attempt to collect the debt if the Statute of Limitations has expired.  They can try to get you to pay the debt by sending your letters or calling you as soon as they do not violate the law while doing so.  But you are able to dispute that.  And we have a lot more details to that answer on Ask CFPB.

(Irene Skricki):	Thank you Kristen.  Let me see, operator, do we have any voice questions yet?

Operator:	We do have one.  Larry Wick, your line is open.

(Larry Wick):	It seems that under the fair debt collection practice act many consumers are blocked by high filing fees to go into court.  And the subsequent litigation costs.  And even when they get that, you know, to try and recover a thousand dollars, for the violation, the collection agencies hire lawyers, which can make it so much more expensive to litigate than just to quit.  And then in my experience, many have quit.  What can be done about that?  By the CFPB?

(Irene Skricki):	(Leslie) or (Kristen), do we have an answer to that?  Or is that something we would need to reply to at some other…

(Kristen Doan):	I'm not entirely sure I understand the full question.  But we can certainly follow up and look for details regarding any kind of work related to what the Bureau can do as a whole.

(Larry Wick):	All right.  Just Congress seems to be hostile to consumer rights.  And short of a change in the Statute is there anything that the CFPB believes it can do about that?  

(Irene Skricki):	That's probably not a question we can answer on this Webinar.  If you want to email a question - that question to cfpb_finex, I can see if we can get an answer.  But I don’t think we can directly address that with who's here on the phone.

(Larry Wick):	Okay.  So be it.  

(Kristen Dohn):	I don’t think we're the right people to answer it.  I don’t think we have those details but we can certainly put you in contact with someone who can.

(Irene Skricki):	Right.  Okay.  I just want - I'm going to read - I'm going to take one more written question and then we'll check again for voice.  And it's actually more of a note.  But I'll share this.  Just want to be sure that - let me read the question, that employers are in no way required to respond to a request for information from debt collectors.  Is that true?  I think we may have an Ask CFPB question on that.

(Courtney):	What was the question?

(Irene Skricki):	 I guess it's an employers required to respond to request for information from debt collectors.  I think the person's saying that they're not.  But actually (Courtney), who's also in the room here with me, has the Ask CFPB question open.  Do you want to read it to us (Courtney)?

(Courtney):	Yes.  We do have a question on Ask CFPB.  And the question is, "A debt collector called my employer looking for me.  What can I do?"  And the answer we have on the Web site is that if a debt collector calls your employer, you might want to talk to the person who took the call to find out what the debt collector said.  There are strict limits about what debt collectors can say or ask about you.  A debt collector generally may only contact other people to find out where you live, what your phone number is and to verify where you work.  A debt collector may not tell your employer that you owe a debt.  If the debt collector had told your employer that you owe a debt, you may want to speak to an attorney about your rights.  And that is Ask CFPB question 1409.  

(Irene Skricki):	Great.  Thank you, (Courtney).  (Leslie) or (Kristen), anything to add?  I assume probably not.

(Kristen Dohn):	No. That's great.

(Irene Skricki):	Okay.  Let's see.  Any other voice questions before I go back to the Q&A ones?

Operator:	We have none at this time.  But once again, Star 1 if you would like to ask a question over the phone.

(Irene Skricki):	Okay.  So, I will read another question from here that's been sent via the Q&A function.  Does the CFPB respond to complaints in reference to other government agencies?  For example, Veteran's Affairs.  Can either of you guys answer that?  I think what we do is we refer those complaints on to other agencies.  We don’t directly respond but we have arrangements with other - certainly other regulatory agencies.  

(Kristen Dohn):	That is correct. Our consumer response team does forward any complaints that comes through that are not related to the Bureau's work and we forward that on to the agency that does work with them.

(Irene Skricki):	Yes.  Actually, some people are answering questions here in the Q&A, which is great.  Okay.  Thanks for the help.  Let's see.  Here's one for you Kristen.  This is kind of interesting.  I'll paraphrase a bit.  

	Were there any sort of positive stories or communications about collection agencies in the teller stories we've collected?  Has anyone submitted a positive video or is the sole focus agencies that don’t follow the rules?  

(Kristen Dohn):	No.  We actually reviewed a number of stories and we reached out to ones that had been confirmed that the consumer did have a relationship with the company they were talking about.  And we did not get very many responses.  Understandably that people may not want to share their stories.  But the ones that we shared were the only people that had agreed to have their stories told on our site.  

	So, we didn’t target any specific type of story.  We just asked for any stories related to the topic.  And these were the ones that we had gotten.

(Irene Skricki):	Great.  Thank you.

(Leslie Parish):	And Irene, if I could add a little bit of color to that from our report findings.  We found, you know, people had a variety of impressions about their contact with their creditor or debt collector about a debt in collections.  

	So, on one hand we found that a little over a quarter of consumers with a debt collection said they felt threatened.  Over a third said they thought they were called too early or too late in the day.  Nearly two-thirds said they were contacted too often.  

	But on the other hand, you had over half of those consumers with a debt in collection that said their collector or creditor gave them accurate information about the debt.  They provided options for paying the debt and treated them politely.  So, we see kind of a wide range of experiences.  

(Irene Skricki):	Great.  Thank you, Leslie.  Let's see.  I will - I think we may have answer to this question I'm about to read in a blog that we did recently, I think.  But the question is what do you recommend for employees -- I guess this must be an employer perhaps -- that get balances billed for medical care on an insurance carrier says they do not own the amount?  I know we had something on our blog recently about I think Medicare billing.  

	I don’t know if anyone - if any of the speakers on this call can answer that.  But (Leslie) or (Courtney) do you - do either of you have a response.  Otherwise I may have to take the question separately via email and see if we can get an answer.

(Kristen Dohn):	We did put out a blog on January 18, about what to do if you're wrongfully billed for Medicare costs.  And that blog goes into some steps for consumers.  They can tell the provider or debt collector that they are enrolled in a QMB program.  They can call Medicare.  They can have - if they have a problem with debt collection, they can submit a complaint.  

	The blog is on our Web site in the about us section.  And I can share that link if that's helpful for people.  And that goes through some questions related specifically to Medicare costs.  

(Irene Skricki):	Great.

(Kristen Dohn):	Does that answer the question.

(Irene Skricki):	Yes.  Probably to the extent that we are able to.  Let me see.  Oh.  There's all kinds of interesting things coming in here.  Let me read a couple of other ones.  You're a group full of questions.  That's wonderful.  

	Do we have any information about the limits of garnishments of employee pay? I guess related to debt collection?  (Leslie) or (Kristen) do you know?  And Courtney's also looking on Ask CFPB.  

(Kristen Dohn):	If you go to our debt collection portal, we do have garnishment in the terms section and we have a quick overview of garnishment there.  And I'm not sure if our question on Ask CFPB has a little bit more of an answer.  I’m looking it up really quickly.  

(Irene Skricki):	But there is something in the debt collection portal that addresses that?  That's great.

(Kristen Dohn):	It's a quick definition of garnishment.  The question was related to…

(Irene Skricki):	What are the limits, I guess, of how, when that can be done.  I'm reading a little bit into that question.what's the law around that.  

(Courtney):	I don’t think we have any information about those limits but - because I think they're state and federal laws that have certain limits.  So, it might depend on the state you are located in.  

(Irene Skricki):	Right.

(Courtney):	But if you do look at Ask CFPB question 1439, there's a little bit more information related to debt collection and garnished wages.  

(Irene Skricki):	Okay.  Great.  Let's see.  Yes.  Someone else has noted here that wage garnishments are - limits on wage garnishments are based at the state level.  So, it would be depend - correct, it would depend on where you live.  

	Oh my!  There's all kinds of - someone asked if I could share the questions.  I don’t think I can actually do that on my screen, though I would be happy to.  

	I'm getting lots of interesting things here.  Let me see.  Again, answers.  One person says debt collection improvement act limits garnishment to 15% of pay for all debt.  Someone else says an agency can request 25% of net income but other obligations will be paid first like child support.  It sounds like this is a complicated question and probably anyone who has specific questions about their own situation or situation of a client is going to need to find someone in their state who can  answer from a legal perspective.  

	I will just address one thing that people asked again.  Yes, participants can receive a copy of this presentation.  If you email the cfpb_finex inbox, I will send out a pdf to anyone who requests it.  Again, cfpb_finex@cfpb.gov.  or any other questions you get, they come to me to Irene and I will -  I'm happy to kind of pass them on.  

(Kristen Dohn):	Irene.  So, we have a question 1439, consumerfinance.gov/askcfpb/1439.  It talks a little bit more about garnishments of bank accounts or wages and it goes into, you know, satisfying the state and federal limits or extensions that apply to bank account/wage garnishments.  It has a little bit more information than the definition of what is garnishment.  And I did post the link.  I don’t know if everyone can see it.  But I did post the link in the forum.  

(Irene Skricki):	Okay.  Great.  Thank you.  Let me see, I know this - I think there's a least one more voice question because someone asked about that.  Operator, do we have additional voice questions?

Operator:	We do have two more additional voice questions.  The first is from Percy Lowe, your line is open.

(Percy Lowe):	Hello.  Hi.  How are you all doing?  

(Irene Skricki):	Good.  Thanks.

(Percy Lowe):	Great.  It's my first time on here.  But, my question is this.  I find debt collectors always violating the state law just as well as the government law and they're not - they haven't been licensed or bonded.  Or sometimes even registered according to the state to collect in the state they're trying to collect.  And when you put this into the CFPB, there's nowhere in the dropdown box when doing a case with the CFPB where you can indicate that.  To help get them removed.  

	I get this all the time.  Because I'm in a consumer state where you have to be bonded and registered.  And I got a list of all the registered debt collectors who can work in the State of Texas.  So, I know who can't.  

	And I got one that's just killing my clients and he can't be removed.  I done posted everything.  From voice messages and all showing that they're in the wrong.  Why can't we get them removed? From Experian, Equifax and TransUnion.  They don’t like to cooperate.  

(Kristen Dohn):	You're talking about getting the - a report their credit report removed. 

(Percy Lowe):	Yes.  Like I have clients that normally have a debt collector trying to collect that's on their credit report.  And the debt collector is totally wrong because they're not registered or bonded and not registered the correct way with the State of Texas.  

	So, they can't collect it.  So, they shouldn’t be on the credit report.  But when I post it on the CFPB with all the records showing that, Equifax or Transunion or Experian never removes the debt.  That's wrong because ((crosstalk)) they're violating the law.

(Irene Skricki):	When you file a complaint, what do you mean?  Do you file a complaint with the CFPB?  

(Percy Lowe):	Yes.  When I file a complaint with the CFPB, I upload everything.  I even go the State of Texas debt collectors Web site to prove that this company cannot collect in the State of Texas.  They're violating the law.

(Kristen Dohn):	So, we have a number of Ask CFPB questions related to credit reporting.  And some of them do touch on what you can do to dispute any errors in the report.

	If you find a mistake in a credit report from a credit reporting company, you can submit a dispute, not only the credit reporting company but also directly to the company that is source of information.  

	However, there are certain types of disputes that companies are not required to investigate.  If you look at Ask CFPB question 314, it has some of those details about the details your dispute letter should include.  And hopefully that will help you.

(Percy Lowe):	Yes.  But when you dealing with a debt collector, you don't need a dispute letter.  You need what you call a creditors validation letter.  That is ((crosstalk)) inside the law for debt collectors.  

	The Fair Debt Collection Practice Act says they got to follow the law inside the creditors validation letter.  They got to validate the debt to know if they can collect on it.  And they can't do it.  

	So, if they can't validate the debt, it's supposed to come off the credit report from Experian, Equifax and TransUnion.  And they don’t take it off.  

(Irene Skricki):	Yes.  And I don’t know on - we may have to pass that question onto others here in terms of what the - I know the Bureau works closely with states.  But I don’t know if we are actually, you know, monitoring any way to see whether -- my guess is we're not -- to see whether a debt collector is registered within a state.  So, that may be beyond what our consumer complaint function does.  But I'm not sure.  

	So, Percy, if you want to email that to me, I can see if I can get an answer on that.  But we probably can't answer it now.
(Percy Lowe):	Okay.  So, what is that code number again?  3140 what?  So, that I can look that up?  She said 134 something.  

(Kristen Doan):	Oh.  How do I dispute an error on my credit report?  It's Ask CFPB question 314.  

(Irene Skricki):	Yes. But that's probably not, I don’t think that’s going to ((crosstalk)) …

(Percy Lowe):	No.  I'm not trying to dispute it.  Because there is no need to dispute when a debt collector's in the wrong.  And that’s inside - that’s actually inside the law when you go to see - when you pull the actual FTC law they have for debt collectors with the Fair Debt Collection Practice Act, it says it's in the law.  

	You have to validate the debt before a debt collector can pick it up.  And they got a list of things they supposed to be able to do.  If they can't do those list of things, then the debt collector automatically has to be removed by Experian, Equifax and TransUnion.  That's automatic in the law.  It's written in the law.  

	And you have to be either registered, bonded or whatever the state says for you to collect in that state.  You have to follow that state law.  Or you can't work in that state.  

	I catch it all the time in the State of Texas.  You can't work in Texas without certain things.  And I catch them all the time when I upload the whole -- everything -- you know, when you go on and you say debt collector and they ask you a part where you can upload all your supporting documents.  I upload all that in there.  I got cases where I now with cases not solved.  

(Irene Skricki):	Yes.  Okay.  Well we may have to address that offline.  But thank you for sharing that.  It sounds like there's been a lot of issues in that one.  But thank you Percy and again feel free to send an email to the FinEx box if you want to follow up.  So…

(Percy Lowe):	Okay.  I'll be glad to do that.

(Irene Skricki):	Okay.

(Kristen Dohn):	Disclosure verification of debt is one of the debt collection issues in the complaints database.  So, we can try to put you in touch with someone from Consumer Response.  

(Percy Lowe):	Okay.  Because actually I see a lot of things you all are truly missing that need to be inside the CFPB that it really solves the problem.  It actually solves the problem.  You all are missing a whole lot when it comes to debt collectors.  Literally you all are.

(Irene Skricki):	Yes.  Well okay.  

(Percy Lowe):	One click it will solve the whole problem.

(Irene Skricki):	Okay.  Thank you for sharing that and feel free to email further.  

(Percy Lowe):	Okay.

(Irene Skricki):	Let's see.  Operator, let's take the next voice question.  And then again there's all kinds of interesting discussions going on here.  I'll try to get to as many as I can.  Though we are short on time.  Was there one more voice question operator?

Operator:	Yes.  We have Trish Savage; your line is open.

(Trish Savage):	Oh.  Thank you.  I was curious and want to piggyback on the question about the survey.  How many people did you actually survey?  And how did you reach them?  I hope you haven’t already told us that an (unintelligible).

(Leslie Parish):	No. That's a great question.  So, we collected a sample of a little less than 11,000 people using that consumer credit Panel.  And we received 2,231 responses.  And then the credit reporting agency was able to pair those responses with information from those consumers' credit records.  

	So, we have a fuller picture of what the people that responded.  And I think also -- importantly -- people that didn’t respond to the survey because and surveys just generally non-responsive by it is a huge issue in trying to, you know, parse out what your findings and your responses really mean.  And if they're representative.  

	So, this review, you know, everyone that was selected to receive a survey, we were able to weight the responses that we did get to make them nationally representative.  

(Trish Savage):	Okay.  So, how did you choose the people to receive the survey from the consumer credit Panel?  I'm not sure what that is.  

(Leslie Parish):	Yes.  So, the CFPB has a data resource called the Consumer Credit Panel.  Basically, it's a sample of consumers with credit reports from the United States.  And so, we were able to draw a sample of consumers with credit reports.  We -- over a sample of people that in their credit reports -- that showed up that they had some sort of debt in collections.  

	So, we made sure that we got enough responses from those consumers because we could weigh the responses on the backend.  We could make the findings nationally representative.  

	But, one interesting thing I will say since we could see people's credit records, and their responses, is we saw a lot of consistency with people that had debts in collections that were reported on their credit reports that did say, "In fact.  I do have a debt in collections."  So, that was one of our concerns as well during the survey, you know, are people going to accurately report whether they had a debt in collections.  

	You know, it’s a sensitive topic.  But we found a lot of consistency with what people were saying that they had in terms of their financial situations and what we could see on their credit reports.

(Trish Savage):	Okay.  So, people actually request their credit report, the CFPB has access to those that have been requested?  

(Leslie Parish):	No, no.  Sorry.  So, we have a database that is a collection of the identified credit report information.  So, we can see -- for example -- things like, you know, what is the overall indebtedness in this level of people who take out loan debt.  Or what share of people have a delinquency on credit records.  Things like that.  

	So, we can see what's going on -- kind of on a broad meta scale -- of people's financial health.  So, we could use that resource to select a sample of people that we would then survey. 

(Trish Savage):	Okay. So, just to make sure I wrote it down right.  You said on 11,000 you got response from 2100?

(Leslie Parish):	Right.  Roughly 2100.  2132.  

(Trish Savage):	Thank you very much.  

(Leslie Parish):	Yes.  Sure.  And if you want a little bit more detail on that, if you download the survey report, section two goes into  what our sample design looked like, how we kind of operationalized this, some more information about the consumer credit Panel.  And what the kind of waiting looked like and how we adjusted things specifically to make sure its nationally representative.

(Trish Savage):	All right.  Will do and I thank you very much.

(Leslie Parish):	Thank you.

(Irene Skricki):	Thank you Leslie.  Let's see. This is another one specific to the survey.  So, I'm going to ask this question that came in over the Q&A function.  Did consumers respond, I guess, to the survey regarding specific debts or debt collectors or creditors?  Or did they just respond to general questions, which may have related to a variety of particular debt collection experiences?

(Leslie Parish):	There was an answer to that is both.  So, we asked people about any debts that they had in collection over the past year.  So, nothing, you know, no experiences that were for example from five years ago.  These are recent experiences.  

	So, we asked them generally about those debts over the past year that they had been contacted about.  But then there were a series of kind of more specific questions about the most - the debt they were most recently contacted about.  So, for consumers that were only contacted about one debt within the last year, those are the same thing.  

	But, the people that are showing that had maybe two or more debts in collections we were specifically drilling down on the most recent debts that they were contacted about.  So, there's questions in the survey that relate to both.  

(Irene Skricki):	Great.  Thank you, Leslie.  Let's see.  We are almost out of time.  I want to know - I think people can see there's a number of questions.  Actually, a lot of people have been responding to each other.  And I think everybody can see that if you look at the Q&A function.  

	So, there's some proposed answers to some questions that you all have been posting, which is actually quite interesting.  Let me - I'm going to ask - let me ask one more that I see here that I think is fairly general.  And then I'll check to see if there's any other voice ones and then we may out of time.  

	And if I can find it here - is it recommended that people dispute a debt through the debt collector first -- debt collection agency -- or through the credit reporting agency?  Any thoughts on that?  To my presenters.  Who should you dispute it with first?  Debt collector or credit Bureau?  

	And I don’t know if we have a specific answer to that.  But if anybody has thoughts on that, of my presenters, initially, or if we have an ask question.

(Kristen Dohn):	I can look and see.  I think if I remember correctly -- from looking through a number of our Ask questions -- if consumers were doing this outside of the complaint process, it would be both in a way, right.  You dispute it on both ends to make sure everything was moving along.  I don’t know off hand if we have a question that directly relates to that.  

(Irene Skricki):	Right and for some of these questions, we don’t give advice directly.  So, you would also want to consult any kind of legal help you might have.  Our information is meant to give you information so you know what your options are, what you're dealing with, but not specific guidance.  Let me just note we're right at three.  Let me ask, are there any more voice questions operator?

Operator:	We do have one more.

(Irene Skricki):	All right.  Let's take that as hopefully our final question.

Operator:	Percy Lowe; your line is open.

(Percy Lowe):	I'm just going to backtrack to the one with just asked.  You always dispute the debt collector first.  You never do a dispute with the Credit Bureaus first.  Because that's the easiest way to get something, what you call a frivolous dispute.  

	You need to dispute the debt collector ability to validate the debt first.  According to the Fair Debt Collection Practice Act.  Then do it - go through the process.  

(Irene Skricki):	Great.  And actually, someone just asked, could you just introduce yourself and where you work?  If you're willing to do that.

(Percy Lowe):	Okay.  Yes.  My name is Percy Lowe and I am actually a credit expert.  I studied credit for 14 years.  I work with several companies where I went to a credit university and learned how to deal with the Credit Bureaus through people who actually work with the Credit Bureaus then left and formed their own credit university to teach people how to fight the Credit Bureaus.  

	And when the CFPB was formed, I spent about six months to a year just reading everything I can on the CFPB and what they're capable of doing.  And from that point on, it’s a lot of things I do when it comes to consumers is dealing with the original creditor or the debt collector first.  

	You never want to deal with the Credit Bureaus until you got factual information to turn in that meets both your federal law and your state laws.  Because you have state laws just as well.  And there are not collection companies out here who deal with the state law.  They always send in dispute letters in where you shouldn't send dispute letters in.  

	So, I'm kind of what you could say is a credit investigator.  Where I go out and investigate things before I tell a client to do a dispute letter.

(Irene Skricki):	Okay.  Great.  Thank you for sharing that.  So, we're a little past time now.  There are some other thoughts and things floating around.  I found some in the chat function too as well as Q&A.  

	So, if anybody has something we were not able to get to today, you can email me or cfpb_finex@cfpb.gov.  Obviously in cases with very questions around specific cases and clients and all you may actually need to seek legal help in some cases or other expert help as we are limited in what we can say.  

	But, thank you very much.  I hope this was useful.  I hope this gives people some ideas about resources or things they can turn to.  I encourage people to share stories or have your clients share stories.  To access all of our materials and again if anybody and the report that (Leslie) described is online along with the portal that has some of the different information we described.  

	So, and anyone again, who is not part of FinEx and wants to be part to these Webinars in the future, we have one every month.  The fourth Thursday of every month, email cfpb_finex@cfpb.gov and we can add you to the list for that.  

	So, thanks again.  A lot of energy around this topic and a lot of great questions and a lot of stuff I wish we had more time to get to.  But I think we will close down now and thank you very much everybody and thank you very much to my speakers for sharing with us today.   Thanks, everyone.

(Kristen Dohn):	Thank you, Irene.  

Operator:	Thank you for your participation on the conference call today.  At this time, all parties may disconnect.  


END
NWX-CFPB HQ
Moderator: Sharon Mobley
02-23-2017/1:00 P.M. CT
Confirmation # 2772968
Page 1