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If You Collect in Colorado, You Should Be Aware of This

On June 30th of this year, Colorado quietly tidied up some pieces of legislation and made a change to how collection agencies communicate with consumers.

Per the text of Colorado House Bill 20-1402, starting on 1 July 2020, agencies collecting debt from Colorado consumers need to update the language on the first notice sent.

Before 30 June 2020, collection agencies collecting in Colorado were required to inform consumers of their rights under the Colorado Fair Debt Colletion Practices Act. The language Colorado expected to see was this:

FOR INFORMATION ABOUT THE COLORADO FAIR DEBT COLLECTION PRACTICES ACT, SEE WWW.AGO.STATE.CO.US/CADC/CADCMAIN.CFM

If you weren't able to fit that language on the first page of your notice, Colorado required a notification on the front notifying the consumers to see the back of the letter for info about the CFDCPA.

That has changed.

Your letters now need to say:

FOR INFORMATION ABOUT THE COLORADO FAIR DEBT COLLECTION PRACTICES ACT, SEE HTTPS://COAG.GOV/OFFICE-SECTIONS/CONSUMER-PROTECTION/CONSUMER-CREDIT-UNIT/COLLECTION-AGENCY-REGULATION/

The requirement remains that if you can't fit this language on the front page of your letter, that the letter needs to let consumers know they can find that information on the back of the letter.

This may be a surprise to some of you. For reasons beyond my ken, Colorado hosts the full text of its CFDCPA on LexisNexis, and it has not been updated with this new requirement. But the bill linked above is currently in effect, so if you haven't worked with your letter vendors for Colorado, maybe that should rise closer to the top of your to-do list.

Discussed in July Peer Calls

If you have any insight you'd like to share on any of these questions, we'd love to hear from you. Reply to the newsletter, or send an email to mbevel@insidearm.com.

• What verbiage are agencies using for their letters to respond to CCPA requests for deletion or inquiry of personal information. Would appreciate any examples.
• The latest decision on TCPA and if providing a mobile/cellular number on an application (regardless if credit, medical, etc.) is considered consent to be called via ATDS and if said consent rolls to affiliated business partners and/or third party collection agencies.
• I would like to know how contact centers are managing the clean desk policies and assuring customer data is secure. For us, we blocked the USBs and web access before sending the agents home, but there is no way to know that they are not using their own phones or writing info down. We did have them sign a strict WFH policy including data security and I have some monitoring in place, but it could not possibly catch everything.
• Does anyone know if NYC has their common terms up on their website yet?
• Looking for vendors for translation services