HB5016eng 97TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

HB5016 Engrossed LRB097 18247 CEL 63473 b

AN ACT concerning regulation.

Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly:

Section 5. The Collection Agency Act is amended by changing Section 2 and by adding Sections 8.5 and 8.6 as follows:

(225 ILCS 425/2) (from Ch. 111, par. 2002)

(Section scheduled to be repealed on January 1, 2016)

Sec. 2. Definitions. In this Act:

"Charge-off balance" means an account principal and other legally collectible costs, expenses, and interest accrued prior to the charge-off date, less any payments or settlement.

"Charge-off date" means the date on which a receivable is treated as a loss or expense.

"Consumer credit transaction" means a transaction between a natural person and another person in which property, service, or money is acquired on credit by that natural person from such other person primarily for personal, family, or household purposes.

"Consumer debt" or "consumer credit" means money, property, or their equivalent, due or owing or alleged to be due or owing from a natural person by reason of a consumer credit transaction.

"Creditor" means a person who extends consumer credit to a debtor.

"Current balance" means the charge-off balance plus any legally collectible costs, expenses, and interest, less any credits or payments.

"Debt" means money, property, or their equivalent which is due or owing or alleged to be due or owing from a natural person to another person.

"Debt buyer" means any person engaging in, or holding itself out as engaging in, the business of purchasing accounts for value and acquiring all rights in and ownership of a debt.

"Debt collection" means any act or practice in connection with the collection of consumer debts.

"Debt collector", "collection agency", or "agency" means any person who, in the ordinary course of business, regularly, on behalf of himself or herself or others, engages in debt collection.

"Debtor" means a natural person from whom a debt collector seeks to collect a consumer debt that is due and owing or alleged to be due and owing from such person.

"Department" means Division of Professional Regulation within the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation.

"Director" means the Director of the Division of Professional Regulation within the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation.

"Person" means a natural person, partnership, corporation, limited liability company, trust, estate, cooperative, association, or other similar entity.

(Source: P.A. 95-437, eff. 1-1-08.)

(225 ILCS 425/8.5 new)

Sec. 8.5. Debt buyers. A debt buyer shall be subject to all of the terms, conditions, and requirements of this Act, except as otherwise provided for in subsection (b) of Section 8.6 of this Act.

(225 ILCS 425/8.6 new)

Sec. 8.6. Debt buyer activities.

(a) Debt buyers initiating actions upon an obligation arising out of a consumer debt shall be commenced within the applicable statute of limitations period.

(b) With respect to its activities as a debt buyer in pursuing the collection of accounts it owns, a debt buyer shall be subject to all of the terms, conditions, and requirements of this Act, except that a debt buyer shall not be required to (i) file and maintain in force a surety bond under Section 8 of this Act; (ii) maintain a trust account under Section 8c of this Act; (iii) procure written authorization to refer the account to an attorney for suit under Section 8a-1 of this Act; or (iv) adhere to the assignment for collection criteria under Section 8b of this Act.

(c) The Attorney General may enforce against debt buyers the provisions identified in Section 9.7 of this Act as an unlawful practice under the Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act.

Section 99. Effective date. This Act takes effect January 1, 2013.