The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) is an act that helps regulate the use of telephones by businesses to contact consumers. The basis behind the act was to help prevent consumers from being harassed by unwanted telemarketing phone calls to their wireless devices.

A push was made this year to make updates to the TCPA, a push spearheaded by the consumer collection industry. That effort led to a bill that was introduced into the United States House of Representatives late last week on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2011.

The proposed legislation is called the Mobile Information Call Act of 2011 and seeks to update several sections of the TCPA. The updates include an exemption from the auto-dialer ban for informational calls, a clarification of the language in the "prior express consent" requirement and a continuation of the prohibition against using assistive technologies to contact cellular numbers for solely telemarketing purposes.

The bill was proposed in response to the increase of cellphone use amongst consumers, many of which no longer have a land line but rely exclusively on their mobile devices as their direct means of contact.

The amendments to the TCPA are supported by ACA International, the largest association for credit and collection professionals. According to ACA representatives, the changes will "update TCPA's outdated restrictions."

Debt collection is a heavily regulated industry as an attempt to protect debtors from harassment and unfair collecting and communication practices. If you feel like a creditor has stepped out of the bounds of the law, an experienced bankruptcy attorney is a place to turn to determine any claims that you may have and force illegal behavior to come to an end.

Source: Collections & Credit Risk, "House Bill Seeks To Update Telephone Consumer Protection Act," Sept. 22, 2011