JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Jacksonville Area Legal Aid President & CEO Jim Kowalski traveled to Tallahassee on Monday to urge Florida legislators to oppose an amendment to SB 232.
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If passed, it would have limited the Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act (FCCPA) to debt collectors, leaving the door open for those who commit consumer fraud.
“This legislation would gut our ability to combat scammers and fraudsters,” Kowalski said. “We use the FCCPA extensively in our cases involving scammers and fraudsters, specifically those involved in door-to-door scams involving the elderly, as well as unscrupulous landlords who target many of our lower-income clients.”
The amendment was successfully rejected during committee thanks to Kowalski and a group of consumer attorneys who joined him to appeal to lawmakers.
The FCCPA (Fla. Stat. 559) currently says no “person” can engage in prohibited practices when trying to collect a debt from a consumer.
These prohibited practices include:
- Can’t lie about or misrepresent the debt or threaten violence to collect it
- Can’t abuse or harass the debtor to collect the debt
- Can’t pretend to be law enforcement or tell all the debtor’s neighbor they owe money
- Can’t collect sums not legally due
An amendment to SB 232 would have changed the word “person” to “debt collector,” limiting the legal scope of the act.
Kowalski cites the example of a local senior who was the victim of a door-to-door home renovation scam, where the fraudsters installed tinfoil in her attic along with a tiny fan, and charged her more than $6,000 after telling her it would be free due to tax credits. The scammer then sued her to foreclose on a lien.
“Fortunately, our client saved all the original documents, so we could show the court the contract filed by the fraudster was not a copy of the original,” Kowalski said.
Because the FCCPA covered the installer, JALA was able to protect the senior citizen from the scam. If SB 232 were to pass with the amendment limiting the scope of the law to just a debt collector, the client would have likely lost the case.
Seniors are the group most vulnerable to such scams, with nearly 2,800 Northeast Florida residents aged 60 and over reporting losses to fraud in just the first nine months of 2024, according to data JALA collected as part of the Federal Trade Commission Consumer Sentinel Network.
Florida is also ground zero for consumer complaints. Fact sheets developed by the Student Borrower Protection Center, Americans for Financial Reform, and the Consumer Federation of America showed that Floridians filed 1 million complaints with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), dwarfing California (844,781) and Texas (909,672) in the total number of consumer complaints.
“This is the wrong time to help those who prey upon our seniors and other vulnerable citizens,” Kowalski said.
Kowalski is grateful that the committee voted unanimously against the changes. Now that the amendment has been rejected in committee, it is essentially “dead” but SB 232 is still moving through the House.