On June 30th of this year, Colorado quietly tidied up some pieces of legislation and made a change to how collection agencies communicate with consumers.
Per the text of Colorado House Bill 20-1402, starting on 1 July 2020, agencies collecting debt from Colorado consumers need to update the language on the first notice sent.
Before 30 June 2020, collection agencies collecting in Colorado were required to inform consumers of their rights under the Colorado Fair Debt Colletion Practices Act. The language Colorado expected to see was this:
FOR INFORMATION ABOUT THE COLORADO FAIR DEBT COLLECTION PRACTICES ACT, SEE WWW.AGO.STATE.CO.US/CADC/CADCMAIN.CFM
If you weren't able to fit that language on the first page of your notice, Colorado required language on the front notifying consumers to see the back of the letter for info about the CFDCPA.
That has changed.
Your letters now need to say:
FOR INFORMATION ABOUT THE COLORADO FAIR DEBT COLLECTION PRACTICES ACT, SEE HTTPS://COAG.GOV/OFFICE-SECTIONS/CONSUMER-PROTECTION/CONSUMER-CREDIT-UNIT/COLLECTION-AGENCY-REGULATION/
The only difference is the url that consumers are pointed to.
The requirement remains that if you can't fit this language on the front page of your letter, that the letter needs to let consumers know they can find that information on the back of the letter.
This may be a surprise to some of you. For reasons beyond my ken, Colorado hosts the full text of its CFDCPA on LexisNexis, and it has not been updated with this new requirement. But the bill linked above is currently in effect, so if you haven't worked with your letter vendors for Colorado, maybe that should rise closer to the top of your to-do list.