Statute

[David A. Szwak]

Nebraska State Statutes Regulating Debt Collection / Debt Collectors

Sections 45-601 to 45-622 shall be known and may be cited as the Collection Agency Act.

45-601. No person, firm, corporation, or association shall conduct or operate a collection agency or do a collection agency business as defined in the act until he, she, or it has secured a license as provided in the act. Any person, firm, corporation, or association conducting or operating such a collection agency or doing such a collection agency business without a license shall be guilty of a Class III misdemeanor for each day that such unlawful business is conducted. Any officer or agent of a firm, corporation, or association who personally participates in any violation of the act shall be guilty of a Class III misdemeanor. Nothing contained in this section shall be construed to require a regular employee of a collection agency duly licensed as such in this state to procure a collection agency license. Nothing in the act shall be construed to prohibit a person, firm, corporation, or association regulated as a collection agency in another state and residing in another state from communicating with a debtor in this state.


45-602 Terms, defined. For purposes of the Collection Agency Act:
(1) Board shall mean the Collection Agency Licensing Board;
(2) Collection agency shall mean and include:
(a) All persons, firms, corporations, and associations
directly or indirectly engaged in soliciting, from more than one person, firm, corporation, or association, claims of any kind owed or due or asserted to be owed or due such solicited person, firm, corporation, or association, and all persons, firms, corporations, and associations directly or indirectly engaged in asserting, enforcing, or prosecuting such claims;
(b) Any person, firm, corporation, or association which, in attempting to collect or in collecting his, her, or its own accounts or claims, uses a fictitious name or any name other than his, her, or its own name which would indicate to the debtor that a third person is collecting or attempting to collect such account or claim; and
(c) Any person, firm, corporation, or association which attempts to or does give away or sell to any person, firm, corporation, or association, other than one licensed under the act, any system or series of letters or forms for use in the collection of accounts or claims which assert or indicate, directly or indirectly, that the claim or account is being asserted or collected by any other person, firm, corporation, or association other than the creditor or owner of the claim or demand; and
(3) Collection agency shall not mean or include (a) regular employees of a single creditor, (b) banks, (c) trust companies, (d) savings and loan associations, (e) building and loan associations, (f) abstract companies doing an escrow business, (g) duly licensed real estate brokers and agents when the claims or accounts being handled by such broker or agent are related to or are in connection with such brokers' or agents' regular real estate business,
(h) express and telegraph companies subject to public regulation and supervision,
(i) attorneys at law handling claims and collections in their own names and not operating a collection agency under the management of a layperson, (j) any person, firm, corporation, or association handling claims, accounts, or collections under an order or orders of any court, or
(k) a person, firm, corporation, or association which, for valuable consideration, purchases accounts, claims, or demands of another and then, in such purchaser's own name, proceeds to assert or collect such accounts, claims, or demands.


45-603 Collection Agency Licensing Board; created; members; term; expenses; employees; Secretary of State; duties.


(1) There is hereby created the Collection Agency Licensing Board which shall consist of the Secretary of State, who shall be chairperson of the board, and four members appointed by the Governor. Three of the members appointed by the Governor shall be licensees actively engaged in the collection business in this state, one of whom shall reside in each of the state's three congressional districts. The remaining member shall be appointed at large as a representative of the public. Such person shall not be a licensee actively engaged in the collection business in this state. (2) The term of office of each appointed member shall be for four years, except that of the members of the first board appointed under this section, two shall be appointed for a term of two years. Before a member's term expires, the Governor shall appoint a successor to take office on the expiration of the member's term. A member shall continue to serve after the expiration of his or her term until a successor is appointed and qualified. A vacancy in the office of a member shall be filled by appointment for the unexpired term.
(3) The members of the board shall be reimbursed for their actual and necessary expenses as provided in sections 81-1174 to 81-1177.
(4) The board may employ such persons as may be necessary to carry out the Collection Agency Act, fix the salaries of such employees, and make such other expenditures as are necessary to properly carry out the act, except that all remuneration, expenses, salaries, and expenditures provided for in the act shall be paid out of the Nebraska Collection Agency Fund.
(5) The Secretary of State shall keep a record of all the proceedings, transactions, communications, and official acts performed pursuant to the act and perform such other duties as may be necessary to carry out the intent and purpose of the act.


Website: http://statutes.unicam.state.ne.us