The Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) July 2015 ruling on the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) continues to disrupt credit unions’ ability to communicate with their members, CUNA told members of Congress Tuesday. CUNA President/CEO Jim Nussle wrote to leadership of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on communications and technology, which conducted an FCC oversight hearing Tuesday.
“Surely when passing the TCPA decades ago, Congress did not intend to arbitrarily scrutinize and limit communications between credit unions, which are not-for-profit, member-owned financial cooperatives, and their members,” Nussle wrote. “This order has not only restricted important communications, but has attracted the attention of law firms seeking to profit from frivolous class action litigation and the exorbitant attorneys’ fees and statutory damages associated with TCPA lawsuits.”
Since the order has been released, it has had a chilling effect on communications between credit unions and consumers about important account information.
CUNA’s specific concerns include:
CUNA also used the letter as an opportunity to highlight Consumer Financial Protection Bureau statements that have conflicted with the order. These include the bureau urging financial institutions to contact consumers on mobile phones, praising the evolution of mobile financial services and apparent conflicts between the TCPA order and the bureau’s arbitration proposal.