The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) is a federal body of law that defines how a creditor or their representatives may communicate with a debtor. In the repossession service industry there are many times where you are communicating with a debtor on behalf of their creditor, so the FDCPA is is a body of law every repossession service agent should know and understand.

Every repossession service agent should read and understand the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. You can read a copy of this law here: Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. Take the time to read the FDCPA it is a body of law that as a repossession service agent, you should completely know and understand.

There are several specific parts of this law that would affect how a repossession service agent should conduct themselves. Section 804 deals with "Acquisition of Location Information", or skip tracing as the repossession service industry calls it. Essentially you may not misrepresent yourself as to who you are while calling anyone looking for the debtor.

805.2 states that you may not continue to call a debtor if you know he is represented by an attorney. You can still repossess the car so long as you don't call the debtor.

804.5 States that it is illegal to send mail to the debtor with symbols or words on the outside of the letter that would be visible to anyone and indicate that the debtor is in debt or past due. If you do not send mail to debtors this would not apply to you at all. If you do mail notices to the debtor you should make sure your repossession service is in compliance.

Section 805.3 b states that third party disclosure is illegal. This means that you may not tell anyone that the debtor is in debt, or past due. So it would be illegal to go to the debtor's neighbor's house and tell them that you are trying to repossess their neighbors car. You can however go to the neighbors house and ask them if they know where the debtor is. If the neighbor asks why you are looking for them it is legal to tell them that you work for a towing service and that under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act that it would be illegal for you to disclose why you are there. Anyone with half a brain should be able to figure out that you are there to repossess the neighbors car.

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