Consumer Rights: Federal Protections, Laws & Agencies

You have more consumer protections than you may realize. The difficult part is often figuring out which protection applies to the problem you're experiencing.

Debt collectors, creditors, lenders, credit reporting companies and other financial businesses operate under overlapping federal and state laws. This guide helps you identify the law or agency that may apply, understand the basic protections available to you, document a potential problem, and determine where to go next.

Why Consumer Protection Laws Exist

Consumers regularly deal with companies that have substantially more information, resources and experience with financial contracts, collections, credit reporting and disputes.

Federal consumer-protection laws establish rules governing particular financial and marketplace activities and provide consumers with specific rights when covered businesses engage in those activities.

But there isn't one universal 'consumer rights law.' Different laws address different problems.

• The FDCPA addresses certain debt-collection practices.
• The FCRA regulates consumer reporting and provides rights involving credit-report information.
• The FCBA establishes procedures for certain billing errors involving open-end credit.
• The TCPA regulates specified telephone calls and text communications.
• The CFPB administers and enforces numerous federal consumer financial laws and accepts complaints about consumer financial products and services.
• The FTC enforces numerous consumer-protection laws and collects fraud and deceptive-practice reports.

The easiest way to navigate these protections is to start with what happened, rather than trying to determine which acronym you need.

Start With the Problem, Not the Acronym

A Debt Collector Is Contacting Me

You may have rights concerning when and how an FDCPA-covered debt collector communicates with you, what the collector tells you about the debt, harassment or deception, and disputing the debt.

I Don't Recognize the Debt or Amount

Debt collectors generally must provide specified validation information. Consumers also have important dispute rights.

Something Is Wrong on My Credit Report

Federal law gives consumers rights to dispute inaccurate or incomplete credit-report information.

My Credit-Card Statement Has an Error

Federal billing-error procedures may apply to certain errors involving open-end credit accounts.

I'm Receiving Certain Unwanted Calls or Texts

Depending on the type of communication, technology used, purpose of the communication, consent and other circumstances, federal telephone-consumer-protection rules may apply.

I Want to Report a Company

The appropriate agency depends on the problem. A consumer financial complaint may belong with the CFPB, while fraud or deceptive business practices may be appropriate to report to the FTC or a state consumer-protection office.

Federal Agencies: Who Does What?

Start with your problem, not the acronym.

FDCPA & Regulation F: Debt Collection Rights

The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act establishes federal protections against abusive, deceptive and unfair practices by debt collectors covered by the law.

The CFPB's Regulation F implements the FDCPA and provides additional detail about debt-collection communications, validation notices and other collection practices.

Debt collectors covered by the FDCPA generally cannot:

• Harass, oppress or abuse consumers.
• Misrepresent the character, amount or legal status of a debt.
• Threaten actions they cannot legally take or do not intend to take.
• Contact consumers at times or places known to be inconvenient.
• Publicly post information about someone's debt on social media.
• Bring or threaten legal action to collect a time-barred debt.

When Can a Debt Collector Call?

In the absence of information indicating otherwise, an FDCPA-covered collector generally may not communicate before 8:00 a.m. or after 9:00 p.m. local time at the consumer's location.

Collectors also must respect certain known inconvenient times and places.

How Often Can a Debt Collector Call?

Regulation F does not establish a simple absolute seven-call cap. Instead, it creates presumptions for determining whether repeated telephone calls violate the prohibition against harassing, oppressive or abusive conduct.

The presumption of a violation applies to:

• More than seven telephone calls concerning a particular debt within seven consecutive days, or
• A telephone call concerning a particular debt within seven consecutive days after a telephone conversation with the consumer about that debt.

Debt Validation & Disputing a Debt

When an FDCPA-covered debt collector contacts you, federal rules generally require the collector to provide specified validation information about the debt.

That information generally includes details such as the creditor, amount owed, information needed to respond, and the end date of the 30-day validation period.

If You Don't Recognize the Debt, Verify:

• The creditor's identity
• The current amount claimed
• Itemization information
• Whether the account belongs to you
• Whether you've already paid it
• Whether the amount appears correct
• The validation-period deadline

If you dispute the debt in writing within the applicable 30-day validation period, the collector generally must stop collection of the disputed amount until it provides verification responding to the dispute.

Failing to dispute within 30 days does not itself constitute an admission that you owe the debt.

FCRA: Credit Reporting Rights

The Fair Credit Reporting Act regulates consumer reporting and provides consumers with important rights concerning information contained in consumer reports.

If you discover information on a credit report that you believe is inaccurate or incomplete; you can dispute it.

The CFPB recommends disputing inaccurate information with both the credit reporting company and the company that supplied the information, known as the furnisher.

How to Dispute a Credit Report Error

1. Get Your Reports, Review the reports containing the information in question.
2. Identify the Exact Error, Identify the account, balance, payment history or other information you believe is incorrect.
3. Gather Supporting Documents, Collect copies of statements, correspondence, payment records or other relevant evidence.
4. Dispute With the Credit Reporting Company, Clearly identify what you're disputing and why.
5. Dispute With the Furnisher, Send the dispute to the company that supplied the allegedly inaccurate information. Furnishers generally must investigate and respond to a direct dispute within 30 days of receiving it.
6. Review the Result, If information is found to be incorrect or cannot be verified as required, applicable correction or deletion requirements may apply.

FCBA: Credit Card Billing Errors

The Fair Credit Billing Act provides procedures for resolving certain billing errors involving open-end credit accounts such as credit cards.

During the investigation, consumers generally remain responsible for paying undisputed charges on time.

TCPA: Calls, Robocalls & Texts

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act and FCC rules regulate specified telephone communications, including certain calls using automated technologies or artificial/prerecorded voices and certain text messages.

Debt-collection calls should not automatically be characterized as telemarketing calls.

Federal Law vs. State Law

Federal consumer-protection laws establish important nationwide protections, but they aren't necessarily the end of the analysis. State law can add or vary protections around:

• Debt-collection laws
• Statutes of limitations
• Collection-agency licensing requirements
• Wage-garnishment protections
• Bank-account exemptions
• Consumer-protection statutes
• Credit and lending requirements
• Complaint and enforcement agencies

That means conduct permitted under one body of law may still be restricted by another applicable law.

• Find Your State Debt & Consumer Guide →

What to Document When Something Goes Wrong

• Letters and collection notices
• Emails
• Text messages
• Screenshots
• Account statements
• Credit reports
• Contracts and agreements
• Payment confirmations
• Names of company representatives
• Dates and times of telephone calls
• Notes describing what was said
• Copies of disputes or complaints you submit
• Delivery or tracking records when applicable
• Responses received from the company

Where Should You File a Complaint?

CFPB Complaint Process

The CFPB complaint system is designed to help consumers obtain responses concerning consumer financial products and services and to help the Bureau identify marketplace problems.

1. Consumer submits complaint.
2. CFPB generally routes the complaint to the company or, when appropriate, another government agency.
3. Companies generally respond within 15 days. In some cases a company may indicate that its response is in progress and provide a final response within 60 days.
4. Qualifying complaint information may appear in the Consumer Complaint Database without information that directly identifies the consumer.
5. Consumers can review the company's response and have 60 days to provide feedback.

What to include: what happened, when it happened, which product or account was involved, what you've already done to resolve it, what response you received, and what resolution you're seeking.

CFPB complaint portal: consumerfinance.gov/complaint

FTC ReportFraud

Consumers can report scams, fraud, deceptive business practices, impostor schemes and other marketplace misconduct to the FTC.

ReportFraud: reportfraud.ftc.gov

State Consumer Protection Offices

Federal agencies aren't the only complaint option. State attorneys general and state consumer-protection agencies may accept complaints, investigate scams or fraud, enforce state consumer-protection laws, and provide state-specific consumer information.

USAGov state consumer-protection directory: usa.gov/state-consumer

When Legal Help May Be Appropriate

• You've been served with a debt lawsuit.
• A court deadline is approaching.
• A judgment has been entered against you.
• Your wages or bank account are being garnished or levied.
• You believe a statute of limitations may affect a lawsuit.
• Significant money is involved.
• You need advice about whether a particular law applies to your circumstances.

Consumer Rights Decision Tree

This decision tree is educational. It does not determine whether a law was violated or replace advice from a licensed attorney.