On January 29, 2016, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner signed into law Senate Bill 1369 to reverse provisions adopted in an August 2015 legislative enactment that conflicted with the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) and created operational hurdles for commercial debt collection. These concerns were highlighted to the membership in an August 28, 2015 DBA Member Alert.
DBA International, the Creditors Bar Coalition of Illinois (CBCI) and the Illinois Collectors Association (ICA) worked collaboratively in obtaining these latest revisions to the Illinois Collection Agency Act (ICAA) that:
- REMOVED the requirement that applied the ICAA communication requirements to commercial debt collection
- REMOVED the requirement that debt collectors automatically identify their employer when communicating with individuals for the purpose of acquiring location information about a debtor
- REMOVED the requirement that debt collectors provide the name and address of the original creditor in the initial consumer communication and/or the written notice
The new law indicates that collection agencies and debt buyers will not be subject to civil liability for failure to comply with the aforementioned requirements while they were law from August 3, 2015 to January 29, 2016 if the collection agency or the debt buyer demonstrates compliance with comparable provisions of the FDCPA.