Collection Agencies May Be Cleared for Robo-Calling Cell Phones
The collection agency may be getting a break that they've been waiting for. President Obama is putting forth legislation, it was announced today, to allow collection agencies to robo-call cell phones in order to collect past due student and other government loans. As expected, there has been an outcry from consumer advocate groups, and some senators have refused to comment because they have always assumed consumer friendly roles.
To be clear, as of now the ruling will be only for those that owe student loans, and other 'undefined' government obligations. The move is an effort for the government to collect more money but industry experts doubt that it would have any measurable effectiveness on the overall ballooning debt. The other concern of course is that it won't take much to extend this ruling to all types of consumer debt.
The collections industry has been lobbying for years for this type of prohibition to be lifted. Their principle argument being that millions of consumers have given up their landlines completely since the rates of cell carriers have become so competitive.
Most cell phone users have responded to this as an invasion of privacy and recent comments on some news sites have a common theme about the ease with which cell phone calls can be ignored and dismissed. In addition, many apps are available to block numbers entirely. It's safe to assume that many more of these types of apps will be available soon as well.
Many times people overlook the danger inherit in ignoring calls from collection agencies, regardless of the source or destination. Collection agencies can be relentless when searching for a debtor. When the money is owed to the government, that effort can be amplified many fold. Ignoring the collector will not make the debt go away and in some cases, it could make the debt amount increase.
When a collection agency is unable to contact a debtor, there are a limited number actions which are then open to them. The debt might be sold to another agency or debt buyer and the process may start all over again. The debt may be assigned to a skip tracer, or legal action may take place.
Taking a debtor to court is not a difficult procedure for collection agencies and they often win the case simply because the debtor chooses to ignore the summons.
This new ruling will not change a lot of what already goes on between collection agencies and debtors. But it will make things just a bit more difficult when it comes to avoiding robo-calls.
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