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The National Consumer Law Center and 17 other consumer groups asked the Federal Communications Center Wednesday to reject debt collection firms' request to reconsider rules limiting robocalls and text messages to student loan borrowers and other debt holders.
The rules, which the FCC approved in August, limit debt collectors to three robocalls or text messages per month for debt owed to the federal government. The rules also limited debt collection companies from contacting anyone besides the debt holder via robocall. But a group including Navient, Great Lakes Higher Education Corporation, Nelnet and other loan servicing and debt collection companies filed a petition in December to have commissioners reconsider those rules.
President Trump late last month elevated Commissioner Ajit Pai, a Republican appointed by Barack Obama in 2012, to chairman of the FCC. Pai has supported limiting robocalls in the past but dissented from the rules approved by the FCC last year.
“The FCC’s new leadership should not cave in to industry pressure and must make it clear that consumer protections are at the top of its priority list,” Margot Saunders, an attorney with the National Consumer Law Center, said in a statement.
