The Texas Fair Debt Collection Practices Act
John Wilson • September 26, 2019
Consumer Debt Protection From Threats And Coercion.
The Texas Fair Debt Collection Practice Act protects consumers (individuals whose obligations were incurred primarily for personal, family, or household purposes). The Texas Fair Debt Collection Practice Act protects consumers from various types of threats and/or coercion, including, but not limited to:
- Using or threatening to use violence or other criminal means to cause harm to a person or property of a person;
- Accusing falsely or threatening to accuse falsely a person of a fraud or any other crime;
- Representing or threatening to represent to any other person other than the consumer that a consumer is willfully refusing to pay an undisputed consumer debt when the debt is in dispute and the consumer has notified in writing the debt collector of the dispute;
- Threatening to sell or assign to another the obligation of the consumer and falsely representing that the result of the sale or assignment would be that the consumer would lose a defense to the consumer debt or would be subject to illegal collection attempts;
- Threatening that the debtor will be arrested for non-payment of a consumer debt without proper court proceedings; and
- Threatening to file a charge, complaint, or criminal action against a debtor when the debtor has not violated a criminal law.
These and other acts you can perform to get yourself into trouble with Texas law are set forth in the Texas Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. Tex. Fin. Code § 392.301(a)(1-8). A very simplistic recitation of other potential violations include: (a) making the tenant’s telephone ring at all hours and cursing at them for not paying their rent; Tex. Fin. Code § 392.302 and (b) attempting to collect fees and interest that are not provided for in the lease agreement. Tex. Fin. Code § 392.303(2) Hopefully you won’t ever be faced with an employee who says “so what if I did” in response to your inquisition as to whether he or she engaged in any of the aforementioned conduct, but just in case you receive that response, or a similar response, the answer is that you are subject to both criminal and civil penalties.
A violation of the Texas Fair Debt Collection Practice Act is a misdemeanor, which is punishable by a fine of not less than $100.00 and up to $500.00 for each offense. See Tex. Fin. Code § 392.402. Furthermore, the tenant has one (1) year to file these charges against you. In addition, the tenant is entitled to actual damages and attorneys’ fees relating to their successful prosecution of their case. Tex. Fin. Code § 392.403. The civil penalties for violation of the federal fair debt collection practice act are capped at $1,000.00 per violation, and reasonable attorneys’ fees.
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