Texting for Collections

The law lags often behind technological advances; one example is the area of debt collection.  While financial service providers send 12 million text messages per day, most of them are service-related (such as account balance alerts) and permitted by the account holder.

However, if you are a creditor thinking of using text messaging as part of your collections efforts, you might think twice (and get a legal opinion). The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) and state laws are too antiquated to fairly govern the use of text messaging as a means for contacting debtors.

In an article by PaymentSource David D. Cherner, legal counsel and legislative director of state government affairs at ACA International, a trade group for collectors, says,”The biggest concern is that the [FDCPA] and state laws really don’t address how to use these new methods of communications.”

If you if you have doubts about lawful means of communicating with creditors in North Carolina, call our offices before taking any steps.