A familiar piece of debt collection legislation is back on Capitol Hill. Rep. Madeleine Dean [D-Penn.], joined by Rep. Warren Davidson [R-Ohio], on Monday introduced H.R. 10018, the Fair Debt Collection Practices for Servicemembers Act, a bill that would amend the FDCPA to prohibit collectors from making certain threats when collecting from members of the military and their families.
The bill has been referred to the House Committee on Financial Services.
The legislation would add a new subsection to Section 805 of the FDCPA barring debt collectors from threatening to have a covered servicemember reduced in rank, have a security clearance revoked, or face prosecution under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. A parallel amendment to Section 808 would make it an unfair practice to represent or imply that a failure to cooperate with a collector would trigger any of those consequences.
The definition of “covered member” is broader than active duty personnel alone. It sweeps in dependents, individuals separated or discharged from service within the previous 365 days, and certain family members of those recently separated individuals. Compliance teams would need to account for that one-year lookback window when determining whether the new prohibitions apply to an account.
The bill also directs the Government Accountability Office to study the law’s effect on the timely delivery of information to servicemembers, on military readiness, and on national security, including the extent to which uncollected debt affects servicemembers holding security clearances.
Industry veterans will recognize the text. Dean has introduced substantially similar legislation in prior sessions, including H.R. 5003, which passed the House by a vote of 355-0 in March 2020 before stalling, and versions folded into the Comprehensive Debt Collection Improvement Act in 2021. A Senate companion appeared in the 118th Congress as S. 2396. In announcing earlier versions, Dean’s office cited CFPB data showing that nearly 40% of servicemember complaints to the bureau concerned debt collection, compared with 26 percent for non-servicemembers.
What is different this time is the co-sponsor. Davidson’s presence gives the reintroduced bill bipartisan credentials at the outset, a distinction that could matter in a divided chamber where standalone consumer finance bills rarely move without cross-aisle support. Whether that is enough to push the measure further than its predecessors remains to be seen.
