The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA)

Lesson: The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA)

In this lesson, unwrap the intricacies of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) with the help of Nick Palazzolo, CPA. Deftly navigating through the protections it provides consumers against aggressive and unfair debt collection tactics, Nick outlines the scope of the law, offering real-world examples that bring the rules to life. He clearly delineates the rights and responsibilities of third-party debt collectors, emphasizing the act’s provisions on contacting debtors, permissible communication practices, and legal actions available when violations occur. This engaging walk-through not only clarifies the FDCPA's impact on personal and household debts but also equips with the know-how to handle such situations, presenting a blend of legal insight with practical advice.

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Instructor: Nick Palazzolo

Nick Palazzolo is head instructor of ExamPrep.ai CPA Review. Nick's teaching style is engaging & upbeat, combining practical Big 4 tax & assurance expertise with years of 1-on-1 coaching. His lessons are concise and emphasize what you need to know to pass. Whether you're a recent grad or working full-time, we’re confident you can conquer your CPA exams with Nick’s review.

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Now we're moving on to one of my favorite topics. And why is this? Well, it's because this is what protects us as consumers. This is the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, also known as the FDCPA. What a name, what an acronym. Here we go, we're diving through. This is gonna be what will protect us as individuals as we go through the bankruptcy process, the collection process, kind of all of these protections involved with creditors. Now, this is a federal law under the United States. It aims to protect consumers from abusive and deceptive debt collection practices. The law was enacted in 1977 and it's been amended several times and given a little background to the history there. Now, this is gonna set rules for third-party debt collectors, such as collection agencies and defines their rights and responsibilities when attempting to collect debts. It applies to personal, family, and household debts, including credit card debt, medical bills, and car loans. So let's just give an example. Let's say you owe a hospital $1,000 for an operation and you don't pay that money. Well, then the hospital can go to, let's say the hospitals, many organizations, they're not the best at collecting money for people. What do they do? Everyone specializes these days. Hospitals specialize in care, treatment, surgery, all that good stuff. So what they do is they go to a debt collection agency and they say, we will give you 20% of the money if you do successfully collect this money from the debtor. So if that debt collection agency goes and actually gets the $1,000 from you because they're good at that, they know what to do, they know how to call, how to persuade you to give that debt up, then they'll get to

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