There are a lot of compliance resources out there - all the news items and emails and webinars. And they will give you high-level details. As much as you can take.
But hardly any of them will actually help.
They won't help you find your gaps, handle your tricky compliance challenges, or improve your CMS.
They'll say things like, "A New York Judge did this. And then the Court did that. And then legislation was signed into law changing some aspect of consumer debt collection law statewide."
These details are important! But, they're just details. They're only so helpful. You know and I know that the actual WORK of compliance - finding gaps, setting up procedures, taking action - involves a million judgment calls on specific circumstances and details that you just can't find addressed in a news alert.
Most compliance resources will tell you WHAT IT IS, whatever it is. . . a new regulation, a new ruling, a new trend. But they don't tell you WHAT TO DO.
You know, for example, that you have to respond to a consumer dispute. (You and Google can find plenty of 101 articles on the FCRA and disputes!) But what if you're getting tons of them that are not signed and they all look like they're coming from the same credit repair company? Do you still respond? What does the FCRA say about whether you have to respond or not? Are you taking on litigation risk if you don't respond?
In other words, when real-deal compliance challenges like this pop up, how do you make hard, gonna-impact-your-litigation-risk compliance decisions with nothing but a stack of FCRA rule summaries?
If your answer is to say, "I'm not sure," the problem is not you.
These questions are so often not at all black-and-white. You may be missing critical insight and these resources are not giving it to you.
Yes, you need to know what the rules say, but knowing the rules alone is not enough. To understand the risk, you also need to know how others in the industry have handled similar situations, what policies have they put in place, if they've gotten burned and had to change course, if there is real risk you're missing in your current plans, or how to draft an airtight new policy on this very issue.
These kinds of tricky questions come up all the time.
We know because they come up every week in our Research Assistant member call. Here are some examples of actual questions that came up (and got answered) just in the week I'm writing this article:
- If I offer web payment options and some of them involve an ACH fee, should I include a disclaimer? What should that disclaimer be? Does the CFPB phone payment bulletin even apply to websites at all? Is it a UDAAP risk if I don't disclose everything?
- What should I do when my client updates the balance owed after I have sent the consumer a validation notice? The math no longer works in the itemization table in my model validation notice, what should I do? The CFPB says that the math doesn't have to make sense, but if I send a subsequent notice to a customer, it will result in a complaint every time.
- I'm getting tons of disputes that all look alike and look like they’re from the same credit repair company. None of them are signed. They take a ton of time and energy. Do I need to respond?Our subscribers get weekly, moderated discussion (with me!) plus alerts, weekly practical compliance guidance, and planning guides, templates, and tools they can use materially reduce litigation, regulatory, and reputational risk.
In short, we think that for compliance, context and feedback really matter.
You may have a great compliance team in place, you may read every report on the internet, and maybe you listen to every chatty compliance webinar you can find, but unless you know how others are handling the same challenges or how those decisions worked out for them or what happend when auditors or clients arrived, you're going to be managing compliance in the dark. You won't know if you're missing big risks in your policies or if your plans are completely out-of-step with the rest of industry compliance. There is no way around it.
So, if you don't mind, I'm going to talk about Research Assistant for a second...
We know that compliance professionals are really busy. You have to deal with a constantly expanding universe of new, vague rules, regulations, and case law. And company plans are constantly shifting, too. If you are looking for a resource that can actually help you DO compliance - a resource that can get you timely answers to tough questions, give you a real sense for what's happening around the industry in compliance, connect you to a lot of smart compliance professionals, and give you practical tools you can use to enhance your CMS right away - consider Research Assistant.
Hey, wait! There's more where this came from
With Research Assistant (from insideARM), we talk about what's really happenening in industry compliance all the time. And occasionally, we also send out practical insights like this to a wider audience. Want to make sure you get the new stuff sent straight to your inbox?