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Congress should consider changes to the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act to reflect modern communication methods, to provide more clarity for the collection and debt-buying industry, and to improve consumer protections, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report released earlier this month. The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, enacted in 1977, "hasn't aged well and is poorly enforced," Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said of the report's findings. "The law was written before the advent of e-mail, cell phones and even fax machines and doesn't address modern problems." The GAO also recommends the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency with the authority to modernize and enforce consumer protections against unfair debt-collection practices and to monitor compliance. "Consumers need a federal regulator that is looking out for their interests, rather than the interests of the financial industry," Levin said. "Even well-intentioned laws like the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act can erode over time and offer less and less protection to consumers." To develop the report, the GAO analyzed documents and interviewed representatives from six large credit card issuers, six third-party debt-collection agencies, six debt buyers, two law firms, federal and state agencies, and attorneys and organizations representing consumers and collectors.
