The Florida Legislature has passed a bill that would allow collectors to communicate with consumers via email outside of the normal 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. window, noting that the channel is “less invasive and less disruptive” than telephone calls.
🧾 What happened: On April 29, the Florida House of Representatives voted unanimously (116-0) to pass Senate Bill 232 (SB 232), updating the state’s Consumer Collection Practices Act (FCCPA). The Senate had previously passed the bill 36-0 on April 16. The legislation now awaits the signature of Governor Ron DeSantis and is set to take effect immediately upon becoming law.
📧 Key update: The core change in SB 232 is the exclusion of emails from the list of “prohibited communications” during the hours of 9 p.m. to 8 a.m. Section 559.72(17) previously restricted communications during these hours but did not clearly specify which types of communication were included. The updated law explicitly states that this restriction does not apply to email, provided the message otherwise complies with the rest of the statute.
The legislative language acknowledges that the original law was written before email was a common form of communication and clarifies that telephone calls were the only communication type originally contemplated in that section.
📚 Background: The bill was introduced following a rise in class action lawsuits alleging violations of the FCCPA due to emails sent after hours. Courts had been divided on how to interpret the law. One notable decision — Quinn-Davis v. TrueAccord Corp. — ruled that the time an email is opened by the consumer could trigger liability, leading to inconsistent enforcement.
📢 What they said: “Obviously, we’ve had so many different technologies such as cellphones, text messages, emails, push notifications,” said the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Peggy Gossett-Seidman, a Republican. “Due to a lack of clarity and misunderstanding in terms of communication, the push notifications, texts and emails have come overnight at all hours, multiple times, to debtors.”
SB 232 aims to eliminate that uncertainty by codifying that email communications are permissible at any hour, regardless of when they are opened.
