Recently, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals held that consumers can dispute
the validity of a debt orally because the Fair Debt Collection Practices
Act does not impose a writing requirement.
In the case of
Clark v. Absolute Collection Service, Inc., the Court held that a third party debt collector’s notice related
to an attempt to collect a debt did not properly state the law because
it attempted to impose a requirement on the Clark’s to dispute the
debt in writing. Consumers have various rights to be free from unfair
or improper methods of debt collection and this decision affirms those rights.