FINANCE CODE

TITLE 5. PROTECTION OF CONSUMERS OF FINANCIAL SERVICES

CHAPTER 392. DEBT COLLECTION

SUBCHAPTER A. GENERAL PROVISIONS

Sec. 392.001. DEFINITIONS. In this chapter:

(1) "Consumer" means an individual who has a consumer debt.

(2) "Consumer debt" means an obligation, or an alleged obligation, primarily for personal, family, or household purposes and arising from a transaction or alleged transaction.

(3) "Creditor" means a party, other than a consumer, to a transaction or alleged transaction involving one or more consumers.

(4) "Credit bureau" means a person who, for compensation, gathers, records, and disseminates information relating to the creditworthiness, financial responsibility, and paying habits of, and similar information regarding, a person for the purpose of furnishing that information to another person.

(5) "Debt collection" means an action, conduct, or practice in collecting, or in soliciting for collection, consumer debts that are due or alleged to be due a creditor.

(6) "Debt collector" means a person who directly or indirectly engages in debt collection and includes a person who sells or offers to sell forms represented to be a collection system, device, or scheme intended to be used to collect consumer debts.

(7) "Third-party debt collector" means a debt collector, as defined by 15 U.S.C. Section 1692a(6), but does not include an attorney collecting a debt as an attorney on behalf of and in the name of a client unless the attorney has nonattorney employees who:

(A) are regularly engaged to solicit debts for collection; or

(B) regularly make contact with debtors for the purpose of collection or adjustment of debts.

Acts 1997, 75th Leg., ch. 1008, Sec. 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1997. Amended by Acts 1999, 76th Leg., ch. 62, Sec. 7.42, eff. Sept. 1, 1999.