The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has supplied a model Validation Notice. That notice must contain much more detailed information. Under the new rules, a collector must provide a much more informative Debt Validation Notice within 5 days of the first contact. The information that had to be contained in that notice was quite limited, essentially just the name of the collector, the amount of the debt, and a notice advising the debtor of their right to dispute the debt within 30 days. The FDCPA stated that a collector must send the debtor a Notice of Debt within five days of their first contact with the debtor. Collectors will have to contact you before they place an account on your credit record. Regulation F will prohibit that, except in certain very limited exceptional situations. Instead of chasing you down, they report the collection account to the credit bureaus and wait for you to notice the damage and contact them.Ī lot of people had their credit battered before they ever had a chance to dispute or resolve the debt. Collectors Cannot Report a Debt to a Credit Bureau Before they Contact Youĭebt collectors often use a tactic called “passive collection”, especially with smaller debts. When Regulation F takes effect collection agencies will no longer be able to sue or threaten a suit over a time-barred debt. Judges often issue summary judgments against them even though the debt was time-barred. The debtor had to appear in court and use the statute of limitations as a defense. Under the old rules, collectors could still sue a debtor over a time-barred debt. When the statute of limitations on a debt expires, the debt is said to be time-barred. Debt Collectors Cannot Sue or Threaten to Sue Over Time-Barred Debts That’s a lot to digest, but while some legal interpretations may change, the main items are fairly clear. The document containing the final rule and official interpretation is over 350 pages. What Debt Collectors Say About Regulation F.