Daily Digest - August 18, 2026

🎂 Happy Birthday: Andy Pavlik of ACA International, Joe Hindes of Reliant Capital Solutions, Tamara Girling of Roosen, Varchetti, & Olivier, and Erika Sander of PEAC Solutions.

🎉Congratulations for starting new positions: Rob Grafrath as Founder and Chair at OpenAR Collective, Brian Nagle as Managing Director Business Development at Tucker, Albin and Associates, Jameson Trudel as Founding Enterprise Account Executive at Veritus, Boris Graypel as Vice President of Legal and Compliance at Behavioral Framework, and Eva Gaspar as Implementation Administrator at InsCipher.

New Digital Communications Report

The industry is optimistic. Placements are expected to climb. Consumers, it turns out, are more ready for digital than the businesses serving them.

New AI Event!

Cut through the hype and promotion. Figure out what is fact and what is fiction. Learn from the experts who are doing some amazing things with AI. Hear how others are approaching this revolutionary technology and what they are comfortable with it touching inside their operation.

These are all reasons why you need to be at brainstorm. Can you run the risk, personally and professionally, of falling further behind those who are going to be there?

🏆 NEW CONTEST! 🧑‍🎨

TCN is going to give away a free T-shirt to all brainstorm attendees and they are excited to be hosting a contest to choose the shirt design. So use your imagination or your best AI tool and email me ([email protected]) your shirt designs. Submissions will be voted on and the winning design will be put on the shirts given out to brainstorm attendees.

Deadline for submission is Friday, August 21. 

Collector Facing Class-Action Over Allegedly Missing License Number, Disclosures in Text

• One text message. That's the entire basis of a class action now pending in California federal court, but the plaintiff says what that single message left out is enough to put an entire collection operation on the hook under both the FDCPA and the Rosenthal Act. And the jurisdiction where it landed has seen this exact playbook run before.

• More details here.

• This series is sponsored by WebRecon

A MESSAGE FROM TCN

TODAY’S WEBINAR

UPCOMING WEBINARS

Judge Denies MSJ in FCRA Case Over Issues with Declaration

• A furnisher thought it had summary judgment locked up, right until its own compliance manager couldn't confirm at deposition whether the sworn declaration describing the investigation was even true. Two nearly identical loans three years apart, a mother's confession, and a hastily withdrawn declaration left a Minnesota judge with far too many unanswered questions to let the lender walk.

• More details here.

Judge Denies Motions to Dismiss FDCPA, Bankruptcy Stay Claims

• A student a few credits shy of her master's says a university locked her out of her own transcripts to pressure her into paying, kept piling on fees while she was in bankruptcy, and then quietly discontinued the very program she'd been fighting to finish. A federal judge just let nearly all fifteen of her counts move forward, in a ruling any collector leaning on withheld records should read closely.

• More details here.

Free Software for Collections, Built by the Industry, Answering to No One

• A new nonprofit wants to hand the entire ARM industry a production-grade collections platform, free to download, run, and modify, with no vendor, no license fee, and nobody's sponsor dollars steering it. The founders bolted on eleven governance policies to keep it that way. The open question is whether a famously skeptical industry will actually show up to build it.

• More details here.

Doxo to Pay $2.1M to Settle FTC Deceptive Bill-Pay Charges

• The FTC says Doxo bought search ads to pose as the very billers consumers were hunting for, then quietly stacked fees onto their payments and slid them into a subscription many never noticed. Now the bill-pay company and two co-founders are paying to put it behind them, and agreeing to a long list of things they can never do again.

• More details here.

Minnesota AG Secures Up to $1.4M in Medical-Debt Relief From Rural Hospital

• A rural Minnesota hospital reached for the wrong benchmark when discounting bills for uninsured patients, and the AG alleges it kept using an outdated formula even after the law changed underneath it. The fallout: thousands of patients potentially overcharged and a settlement that could return as much as $1.4 million. How the miscalculation happened is a cautionary tale for anyone billing under state discount rules.

• More details here.

Washington AG Releases First Data Privacy Report

• Washington's first-ever privacy report opens with a jarring statistic: for the second straight year, the state logged more breach notices than it has residents. The AG is pushing lawmakers to act, and buried in his recommendations is a proposal that should get the attention of anyone operating in the data-broker or information-services orbit.

• More details here

Rezolv Raises $12.5M to Automate Debt Collection With AI

• A two-year-old startup founded by former digital-lending executives just pulled in $12.5 million to push AI further into collections, already running millions of borrower conversations a month across 12 million loan accounts. Its co-founder argues the real contest in AI has already moved on, and it's no longer the fight most lenders think they're having.

• More details here

WORTH NOTING: Members of Gen Z see sports betting as a better way to save for retirement than investing ... How companies try to sneak shrinkflation by consumers ... Why more people are breaking up with white bed sheets and going with new colors, textures, and patterns ... Why car buyers should focus less on the monthly payment and more on the total loan cost ... If you need more proof just how valuable data is these days, look no further ... What happens when you ask ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity for financial advice ... How people are defining cheating in a relationship in 2026 ... Tips for helping to manage your kid's screen time.

Trailer Tuesday, part I

Trailer Tuesday, Part II

Webinar Recap: Sales Techniques That Help Land New Clients

The webinar Sales Techniques That Help Land New Clients, sponsored by CSS Impact, brought together leaders from across the collections industry to discuss how agencies, law firms, and vendors can win new business in a competitive market. Panelists emphasized that success is not about hard selling but about building trust, listening to client needs, and maintaining a strong reputation.

Dennis Barton opened by noting, “The secret to success is building relationships.” Kelly Feoli reinforced this with, “Listen more and talk less,” highlighting the importance of understanding client stories. Susan Richards added, “People tend to buy from who they like and trust,” reminding attendees that credibility is critical. Marc Ross cautioned against overpromising, saying, “Your reputation is built in drips and lost in buckets.”

The discussion also addressed challenges such as leadership changes at client organizations, proving value without a “test drive,” and breaking into new markets. Strategies included diversifying contacts across client organizations, leveraging references and proof-of-concept pilots, and engaging in industry associations to build visibility.

🧠 Key Takeaways:

• Focus on Relationships, Not Transactions 
  Build authentic connections across multiple levels of client organizations. Trust and reputation are long-term assets that protect against leadership changes.

• Demonstrate Value Through Proof Points 
  Use references, scorecards, and pilot programs to showcase performance. Underpromise and overdeliver to strengthen credibility.

• Engage in Industry Networks 
  Participate in associations and use platforms like LinkedIn Sales Navigator to expand visibility and prospecting reach.

This webinar underscored that in collections, sales success is less about the pitch and more about patience, trust, and reputation. As Susan Richards put it, “Trust comes over time. It’s not turnkey.”

Did you know you can get full access to all of my past webinars, along with transcripts and summaries of each, for only $29/month? Sign up to be a premium subscriber today!

The Daily Digest is sponsored by TCN