Rep. Maxine Waters [D-Calif.], the chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee, is calling on President-elect Joe Biden to rescind the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s debt collection rule, in order to protect consumers from collectors who will “harass consumers over email or text.”
The recommendation was one of many made by Rep. Waters to the President-elect in a 45-page letter that breaks down a number of changes which fall under the purview of the House Financial Services Committee that she would like to see made.
The changes fall into a handful of categories — fair housing, discrimination based on gender identity, religious exemptions and discrimination, immigration, homelessness, public housing, addressing the structure of the CFPB, fair lending, and initiatives meant to protect consumers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Under the heading of “protect consumers,” the first action recommended by Rep. Waters is to “fire [CFPB] Director Kathy Kraninger.” Under new leadership, the CFPB should then “rescind a recent rule that would allow debt collectors to harass consumers over email or text, and instead bolster consumer protections against abusive debt collection practices.”
What is going to happen to the debt collection rule once President-elect Biden takes office in January is the subject of much debate in the accounts receivable management industry. Whether he will choose to replace the director of the CFPB and whether that will lead to reviewing the debt collection rule to possibly make changes or whether Congress will seek to rescind the rule through the Congressional Review Act remains to be seen. There are some who think that the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the economy will consumer much of the president-elect’s focus once he takes the oath of office on January 20.
In the meantime, Rep. Waters has laid out an aggressive agenda that she would like to see the White House move forward with.
“On top of the physical and mental tolls of this crisis, it is neither fair nor accurate for millions of people to be subject to years of diminished credit and employment opportunities due to negative information being reported on their consumer credit reports,” Rep. Waters wrote. “Likewise, consumers with growing amounts of medical and other debt are unfairly facing the additional stress of harassing calls from debt collectors and are seeing their future credit prospects evaporating.”
