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FTC Staff Commentary: Fair Debt Collection Practices Act
Section 812
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Section 812--Furnishing Certain Deceptive Forms.
Section 812 prohibits any party from designing and furnishing forms, knowing they are or will be used to deceive a consumer to believe that someone other than his creditor is collecting the debt, and imposes FDCPA civil liability on parties who supply such forms.
1. Practice prohibited. This section prohibits the practice of selling to creditors dunning letters that falsely imply that a debt collector is participating in collection of the debt, when in fact only the creditor is collecting.
2. Coverage. This section applies to anyone who designs, compiles, or furnishes the forms prohibited by this section.
3. Pre-collection letters. A form seller may not furnish a creditor with (1) a letter on a collector's letterhead to be used when the collector is not involved in collecting the creditor's debts, or (2) a letter indicating "copy to (the collector)" if the collector is not participating in collecting the creditor's debt. A form seller may not avoid liability by including a statement in the text of aq form letter that the sender has not yet been assigned the account for collection, if the communication as a whole, using the collector's letterhead, represents otherwise.
4. Knowledge required. A party does not violate this provision unless he knows or should have known that his form letter will be used to mislead consumers into believing that someone other than the creditor is involved in collecting the debt.
5. Participation by debt collector. A debt collector that uses letters as his only collection tool does not violate this section, merely because he charges a flat rate per letter, if he is meaningfully "participating in the collection of a debt." The consumer is not misled in such cases, as he would be in the case of a party who supplied the creditor with form letters and provided little or no additional service in the collection process. The performance of other tasks associated with collection (e.g., handling verification requests, negotiating payment arrangements, keeping individual records) is evidence that such a party is "participating in the collection."
