CFPB Hosts Webinar Today About Consumer Debt Collection Survey

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is hosting a free webinar today from 2–3 p.m. EST, to talk about a new CFPB report on consumer views and experiences in debt collection. The CFPB announcement says this survey is the first of its kind, and the most in-depth analysis currently available of consumers’ encounters with the debt collection industry. The bureau also promises stories about consumers’ personal experiences in debt collection, as well as more about new debt collection resources.

Email CFPB_FinEx@consumerfinance.gov to sign up for the webinar.

insideARM Perspective

It is unclear when this webinar was scheduled. We couldn't find any formal announcement -- just a paragraph on the Adult Education page of its website highlighting that it is today (essentially what we've posted above). We are also not aware of a new report other than the one that was released last month, which we wrote about, that was based on results of the consumer survey conducted in 2014-2015.

The survey was based on a sample selected by the Bureau's Consumer Credit Panel (CCP), which is a 1-in-48 random and deidentified sample of credit records maintained by one of th etop three nationwide credit repositories.

During the comment period related to that survey, industry groups, including ACA International, urged the CFPB to scrap it as it was proposed, saying “The CFPB’s justification of the need for the information request is lacking, and the proposed survey is conceptually deficient.” ACA further stressed that “the proposed survey would not yield statistically sound data and therefore will not enable the CFPB to improve its understanding of the debt collection market in support of potential rule writing.”

The American Bankers Association and the Consumer Bankers Association also expressed concerns with the survey, saying the revised version “only perfunctorily responds to stakeholder comments and reflects very little change to the Survey instrument.  It fails to resolve material design and methodological shortcomings necessary to ensure that the data generated by the Survey will have practical utility for the debt collection rulemaking.”

In spite of industry objections, the Bureau moved forward.

Also released in January was a web page to highlight personal stories of consumers about their experiences with debt collection, as well as a study about a segment of the debt sales market.