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March 22, 2012 – Instances of harassment, demands for payments exceeding amounts due and threatening dire consequences for failure to pay were debt collection practices reported most often by consumers in 2011, according to a report sent to Congress this week by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The Dodd-Frank Act gave the CFPB primary responsibility for administering the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. The bureau shares enforcement responsibility with the Federal Trade Commission and other federal agencies.

The report on 2011 activity draws on consumer complaint data collected by the FTC. That data shows consumers submitted nearly 80,000 complaints last year regarding harassment by debt collectors; that is down from nearly 90,000 such complaints in 2010. Demands for payments of amounts exceeding what collectors had a right to were cited in 55,000 consumer complaints last year. Consumers reported threats of dire consequences for failure to pay more than 65,000 times.

In all, the FTC data show consumers submitted 142,743 complaints regarding debt collection practices last year; that's up from 141,285 in 2010. Most of the complaints referred to third-party collectors. In-house collectors (the creditors) were the subjects of 4.8 percent of debt collection complaints last year, down from 6.2 percent in 2010.

The CFPB has launched a consumer complaint system and has begun taking complaints regarding consumer loans, credit cards, mortgages and depository institution accounts. It says it plans to begin taking complaints regarding debt collection practices before year-end.

The CFPB is also contemplating including certain debt collectors within the group of providers it regulates. Last month, it issued a proposed rule that would include some consumer debt collectors and consumer reporting agencies within the category of "larger" market participants subject to CFPB oversight. This is part of the CFPB's effort to implement authority it received under the Dodd-Frank to regulate certain nonbank providers.

NAFCU, in an official comment, urged the CFPB to look at the full range of service providers and to define "larger" participants using criteria such as size, market share and number of specific product markets serviced by such entities.