Oregon Passes Bill Allowing State AG to Sue Debt Collection Agencies

Oregon state legislators are tightening the reins on the accounts receivable management industry.

Last Wednesday, the Oregon House of Representatives and the Senate passed Senate Bill 328, which gives the Oregon Attorney General authority to sue any collection agency in the United States that practices unjust collection tactics against Oregon residents.

According to Tony Green, spokesman for the Oregon Department of Justice, the AG never had this power before. Green said that the AG could only bring companies to justice under the Unlawful Trade Protection Act (UTPA). A loophole in the UTPA prevented debt collection from falling under its authority, even though it applies to most industries in the state.

“The debt collectors did not fall under the UTPA,” Green told insideARM.  “In the narrow sense we didn’t have the power to go after debt collectors, but in the broader sense, the AG has had power over dozens and dozens of other industries for a long time.”

Green mentioned that one reason the new AG, John Kroger, sanctioned Senate Bill 328 is because of hundreds of complaints raised by Oregon residents about illegal debt collection practices.

Complaints spanned from collectors calling debtors in the middle of the night, harassing debtors at work, threatening with arrests, using racial epithets and more.

“All of these are unlawful under the Unlawful Debt Collection Practices Act [sic]; however the state had no power to enforce it on behalf of the injured consumer,” Green said.

In response to the bill, ACA International’s Legislative Director of State Government Affairs David Cherner said, “It would have been better if more authority was vested with the actual regulator of debt collectors. I’m not convinced that this type of authority that’s now given to the AG is going to result in complaints decreasing. I think there are other ways to address the rise in complaints, and unfortunately I don’t believe that this proposal is going to necessarily do that…There are more effective ways to insure that complaints between consumers and debt collectors are resolved.”

An Oregon collection agency owner said the bill is going to impact the industry, because it is not going to do what the AG thinks it should do.

“The bill is not going to give [the Oregon AG] the power to take away unlawful debt collectors’ licenses in the state of Oregon to stop them from continued operation. He hasn’t accomplished anything,” the owner said.

Other Oregon collection agencies say that the new bill won’t change the way they do business. “I don’t think it is going to cause any problems with our agency,” Said Christine Cyphert, general manager of Account Collection Bureau, Inc.

The bill now goes before Governor Ted Kulongoski for his signature. Once the bill is signed it will go into effect on January 1, 2010.