A number of industry trade groups are asking the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs to delay the effectiveness date of its new language access rule because plaintiff’s attorneys may still use the inability of a collection agency to comply with the rule during the 60-day enforcement grace period against them. In a letter to the DCA’s Director of Legislative Affairs, the groups — including RMA International, ACA International, and the National Creditors Bar Association — asked for the rule not to go into effect until three months after the DCA has published additional guidance in the form of Frequently Asked Questions.
The groups submitted a list of 22 questions, some of which it had already posed to the DCA and some of which were new inquiries.
Under the proposed rule, debt collectors would be required to:
- Inform consumers — in any initial collection notice and on any public-facing websites maintained by the collector — of the availability of any language access services provided by the collector and of a translation and description of commonly-used debt collection terms in a consumer’s preferred language on the Department’s website;
- Request, record, and retain, to the extent reasonably possible, a record of the language preference of each consumer from whom the collector attempts to collect a debt; and
- Maintain a report identifying, by language, the number of consumer accounts on which an employee of the collector attempted to collect a debt in a language other than English, and the number of employees that attempted to collect on such accounts.
Debt collectors would be prohibited from:
- Providing false, inaccurate, or incomplete translations of any communication to a consumer in the course of attempting to collect a debt; and
- Misrepresenting or omitting a consumer’s language preference when returning, selling, or referring for litigation any consumer account, where the debt collector is aware of such preference.
In expressing its concerns, the groups noted that the rule could have the opposite effect hoped for by DCA in enacting the rule, that is agencies adopting a “rigid” workplace procedure requiring employees to only speak English, even if they are capable of speaking in other languages. The groups asked for DCA to re-open the comment period to consider other alternatives, such as requiring debt collectors notify “the consumer
of the languages they offer translation services in rather than the adopted process requiring debt collectors to make disclosures that are destined to give the false impression that debt collectors are going to communicate with them in their preferred language.”
A number of industry trade groups are asking the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs to delay the effectiveness date of its new language access rule because plaintiff’s attorneys may still use the inability of a collection agency to comply with the rule during the 60-day enforcement grace period against them. In a letter to the DCA’s Director of Legislative Affairs, the groups — including RMA International, ACA International, and the National Creditors Bar Association — asked for the rule not to go into effect until three months after the DCA has published additional guidance in the form of Frequently Asked Questions.
The groups submitted a list of 22 questions, some of which it had already posed to the DCA and some of which were new inquiries.
Under the proposed rule, debt collectors would be required to:
- Inform consumers — in any initial collection notice and on any public-facing websites maintained by the collector — of the availability of any language access services provided by the collector and of a translation and description of commonly-used debt collection terms in a consumer’s preferred language on the Department’s website;
- Request, record, and retain, to the extent reasonably possible, a record of the language preference of each consumer from whom the collector attempts to collect a debt; and
- Maintain a report identifying, by language, the number of consumer accounts on which an employee of the collector attempted to collect a debt in a language other than English, and the number of employees that attempted to collect on such accounts.
Debt collectors would be prohibited from:
- Providing false, inaccurate, or incomplete translations of any communication to a consumer in the course of attempting to collect a debt; and
- Misrepresenting or omitting a consumer’s language preference when returning, selling, or referring for litigation any consumer account, where the debt collector is aware of such preference.
In expressing its concerns, the groups noted that the rule could have the opposite effect hoped for by DCA in enacting the rule, that is agencies adopting a “rigid” workplace procedure requiring employees to only speak English, even if they are capable of speaking in other languages. The groups asked for DCA to re-open the comment period to consider other alternatives, such as requiring debt collectors notify “the consumer
of the languages they offer translation services in rather than the adopted process requiring debt collectors to make disclosures that are destined to give the false impression that debt collectors are going to communicate with them in their preferred language.”
