Servicemembers Should Not Be Harassed By Debt Collectors

Floor Speech

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Mr. DAVIDSON of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my support for H.R. 5003, the Fair Debt Collection Practices for Servicemembers Act, sponsored by Representative Dean, which passed the House unanimously. I am a proud cosponsor of this bill and was glad to vote for it.

As a former Army infantry officer, I have seen debt collectors harass servicemembers. This is made worse by collectors who contact servicemembers' superiors.

The U.S. military does not owe these debts; they are the debt of the servicemember. So why should debt collectors be in contact with someone who does not owe the debt?

From a readiness perspective, our commanding officers and noncommissioned officers should be focused on training our soldiers to fight and win our Nation's wars, not on keeping track of who owes what money to what debt collector.

Just as debt collectors cannot humiliate civilians by calling their bosses, neither should they be allowed to use such practices on our fighting men and women. I am glad to see that we can all agree that collection companies should abide by the same rules and restrictions for enlisted servicemembers as they do when collecting debts from private citizens.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage the Senate to take up this bill immediately.

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