Is It “Debt Collection” If You Never Asked For Money? U.S. Supreme Court to Review in October 2018 Term

Editor's Note: This article is published by insideARM with permission from the author.

Can a communication from a collector violate the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1692, et. seq. (the “FDCPA”) if it never asks the debtor to pay any money? What exactly does the term “debt collection” mean in the context of the FDCPA? These seemingly simple questions have divided the circuit courts, and they may soon be resolved by the United States Supreme Court when it decides a case that arose out of a nonjudicial foreclosure proceeding in Colorado. See Obduskey v. Wells Fargo, 138 S. Ct. 2710 (2018).

The FDCPA has been with us for over forty years, and it is likely one of the most heavily-litigated statutes in the country. It prohibits debt collectors from engaging in a broad range of unfair and misleading debt collection practices. See 15 U.S.C. §§ 1692b-1692i. How is it, then, that after all this time and all this litigation, we still do not know exactly what “debt collection” means?