debt collector under the fair debt collection practices act with respect to the specific debts that are involved in this litigation and this requires two distinct inquiries there's an entity level inquiry under the baseline definition of fair debt collection practices act and then there's a specific debt inquiry under the exclusions to the debt collection definition and the creditor definition my question that i'm trying to grapple with and interpret this statute is under what circumstance would a consumer need the protection of a federal statute from unfair and deceptive trade collection efforts on a loan that's not in default and the answer is there is no protection there's no basis to provide protection to a consumer on a currently paid loan they're not being called one because they're on time the lender is being repaid its capital in a timely manner in the manner in which it was installed so the first that's the entity inquiry whether the entity santander has sufficient debt collection within its portfolio in order to make it an entity that's covered by the fair debt collection practices  t now the allegations in the complaint specifically state that not only does santander acquire loans for servicing other people's debts for the  but also three thousand other consumers that were similarly situated to these appellants from a prior litigation that was certified as a class action is on the complaint those accounts three thousand accounts account for thirty million dollars of debt and the allegation is that santander was assigned these debts after default for servicing on behalf of citi financial audit with the original creditor as a threshold matter why do you get to go directly to orly for what's my understanding that the definitions in the present there are they're ordered alphabetically so i look at what's included statute before what's excluded and my understanding of the definition of creditor under a four is anything that's excluded the a for the creditor inquiry that's not an entity level inquiry that's a specific sepia heart reading to make it's almost if that's what you're doing i don't know that your best argument but if you have a bank that collects its own debt and also collects that others when it's going about collecting its own debt you're saying it's going to be subject to the act no you are not saying that necessarily that's an entity because they regularly collect that for others correct charges let's just say that fifty percent of their business is collecting debt for others and fifty percent is collecting their issuing issuing debt in collecting it now or in a case where they're collecting their own debt you'd agree that the act doesn't provide for coverage of that doesn't they're not that collective for that purpose collect in it's own debt record bank that issued the loan is allowance collecting it correct that they would they wouldn't be that specific debt that they originated that debt wouldn't be covered by the c p a but that doesn't mean the entity isn't a regionally within group talking about covered a debt collector is it seems to me that a debt collector has to relate to it's a definition for conduct that the debt collector has these of the the person the plaintiff in this case so it's always going to be your your answer i think is absolutely correct i don't think a bank that's collecting on its own debt is intended to be covered by the act the bank's collection with respect to the debt of others now in this case the allegations are that santander purchased the debt for papists a few cents on the dollar and is now collecting it now why isn't that their own debt you know that's that's true but not originally the original originally well they're originally not the purchaser so they're the service or they were hired banks that's what happened that's the allegation of the complaint that's you know it says they were hired to do that  didn't say that's what they did it says the very next paragraph that they purchased for you they purchased the debt with respect to these plaintiffs and they own the debt with respect to these plaintiffs and then they  collecting that they violate the act for the acts that took place that violated the act took place after the purchase was completed it doesn't matter if the question is when they are doing collecting debt at the time they're collecting debt and of illegibly doing this misrepresentations and these over statements in their ras meant are they a debt collector and the question is are they collecting their own debt or they collect into debt for another we're going to i don't correct and congress wanted to deal with agency type debt collectors and they clearly excluded people who are collecting debt on their own behalf their own debt now the fact that how they got the debt whether they issued the purchase it is irrelevant we're hundreds the statute refers to the time when the debt was contained words that say that that's on the exclusion to the second prong but the question is to get under the second prong your client you're santander right no you're there i'm representing a minus my argument is is mistaken then because i assuming you were sent tender you were given away your case but you're actually trying to support your case ok let me just take it from a little different angle than the point is still that the second prong they have to be collecting the debt of another right principle classification and then carve out what you need to carve out if you're carving out something that's irrelevant then you're still back with your new racial definition which is the second prong of six but your honor the reason i bring up the exclusion with reference to the language in the inclusion is that they need to be interpreted the same way at the exact same language is used in inclusion and in the exact same language use me exclamation what is being excluded by that language if you've read it in the inclusion to not include people to begin with it starts with the notion that if you're not of that collector person collecting attempt at these are exclusions now if it concerns a debt which was not in default at the time so that's sort of a safe harbor but it doesn't mean the opposite makes you a debt collector definition then everything of the opposite of the carve out shapes the initial definition and that's just not logic your honor what what i'm what i'm trying to convey is that i think that courts have conflated the issue of whether an entity is subject to the debt collection practices act and whether the specific debt is a debt that should be regulated by the act policy consideration exclusion they both reference and plain terms debt load or do another and this is all stuff the santander bought it's their debt now and right it's their debt at the time that they're that the allegations of the unfair practices took place right but even if that's your cause of action after they bought the debt they did these bad things so you're found in those cases the plaintiffs in those cases on appeal were found not to properly alleged that the entities themselves wells fargo and capital one qualified under a six as a deck elector because the consumers did not a ege that wells fargo and capital one ever collected debt on behalf of someone else it didn't have any reference to the specific debts they were allege in those cases you don't have that in your complaint either your honor and in the complaint in this case the plant the appellants have alleged that they were part of a class of people three thousand consumers and that those that their debts were assigned for servicing to  r said in one paragraph that they were hired that santander was hired to service the debts and collect them but you never said that they proceeded the very next paragraph you said they purchased the debt and it seems to me everybody agrees that in this case santander purchased the debt and you explained in detail by saying they purchased it for a few cents on the dollar so now it's their debt that hiring they may have signed a contract that we're going to do this but they didn't do it in this case what they did in this case is they purchased the debt as an investment now the truth of the matter is if you look at the f c c filing they purchased it as an investment and they got it discounted they purchased three point five billion dollars  a portfolio much of which was not in default and some of which was in default but that is irrelevant the question is whose debt was it and after they purchased it they are now owed the money and now when they're collecting their own money you agreed that if they're collecting their own debts that they act on apply right now your honor if they're if they're collecting a debt they originated exactly when were you making that up from your i don't believe i'm making that up i mean there's there's numerous where is the language in the statute the statute here is a creditor or a debt collector that fits the definition that you're trying to give us because we're reminded lord i borrowed money from a little savings bank the next day they sold it to wells fargo wells fargo now owns my loan i pay them the debt i'm not in default but if i go into default  and so i direct you to the definition of creditor i'm looking at it ok after the inclusive clause there's an exclusion and there's seclusion specifically s collection of such debt for another i don't understand how you can really you would have to read it issued and a load creditor under drudge duncan's question he would have to read for the say to whom a debt was issued and is owed that's where you want to read it a creditor is the person who issued the debt and is now owed it otherwise if you don't says if you purchase it soley for the collection of a debt of another but wells fargo didn't purchase even if i'm default they didn't purchase it to for somebody else to collect it in this case they purchased it as an investment i'm quite confident that's what they disclosed but i don't see how they're not personal they're not going to do anything with respect to city finance are they they're not going to return any money to city finance on the collection  that's originally they would have to do it they never purchased it they never collected debt for city finance they purchased the debt that i thought i mean that's what a lot of i mean your complaint says it they purchase it for pennies on the dollar now what's that mean it sounds like an investment that's right when we don't disagree about that but i think we're disagreeing is the time lapse just because the next paragraph in the complaint says they purchase the debt it doesn't happen the next day they doesn't matter they never the allegations of your complaint is collection conduct and that santander undertook in collecting their own debt that's what your complaint says they purchased the debt and they're collecting it and they're doing it with harassment and misrepresentations and the district court said well they're collecting it for themselves and you're saying but they didn't  or they weren't in default or something but you have to fit the definition of a creditor or a debt collector and all of you seem to agree they're mutually exclusive in the act aren't they you know we do agree with that i would wrap up by saying that if you interpret this statute in the way that santander asks then you're going to have debts that fall into both check collector and creditor and so i'd like to just reserve a couple minutes to respond after they have a chance to explain how a decade possibly fall into both categories that i mean if the debts owed to santander it's a debt that so does in tender now if they collect on that debt illegally you have to show that they're not collecting on their for their own account but for somebody else don't you if you're going to understand took out the word  another i understand that seems to be the course position well it's a question really i mean i you know i don't want to foreclose the notion that we're wrong and looking that it but i'm just staring at this language and can't get over the notion that everything is defined as the collection of a debt for another every time they refer to it and when you're collecting your own debt regardless of how you got it then you seem to be a credit right and that's if you can tell me how to get over that hurdle i think maybe we can take it further but that's what you allege in your complaint i think the easy thing to do is to show the court that by taking by inter myself there's been cases in the supreme court where the defendant was adept higher and i can't cite any off the top of my head but wouldn't that fall into the first prong of six it would they be  of santander is fine issuing the financing in your complaint and you said with respect to this one they purchased these loans at a discount and that in collecting these loans out of that  purchased you're saying they were harassing and misrepresenting to the clients they santander comes in and said well that's irrelevant because we're not a debt collector because we purchased this for our own account we're not doing it for somebody else and that's not our business is to collect debts for somebody else our principal business as you allege in the complaint is financing and issuing and as i guess you agree that this purchase was part of that three point five billion dollars portfolio purchased yes correct santander is going to come up and they're going to ask you for per se rule that anyone is collecting on their own debt whether it was originated by that person purchased by that person you still have to get over the hurdles of six first prong right but from what says what it's like if its principal business collection of any debt collection of any debt but then read the creditor creditor specifically this and it depends on how they look at the statute and i think one the one thing i can't agree with you on the other stuff we have to look at what i can agree is that you define six prongs  two by the exclusion under f o s f car set out but then it when it carves it out it takes it away but it doesn't define what's left and and what's left you still have to look under prongs one and two i think and your brief seems to suggest that when it carves it out than anything on the opposite that it is there is sort of a negative pregnant interpretation and i'm not sure that can be done logically but and i'm not sure how the circuits are doing what they're doing and they're all over the park and so i must be in the congress is not writing as clearly as they could but that's not new is that i don't think we disagree on that all right correctly there are two definitions of debt collector i'll call it the first one or definition anyone who is in the principal purpose of collecting that that's what people do that's all they it does your honor an interesting lay i was going to in response to something judge niemeyer said about the cases being perhaps all over the place i was going to point out and we discussed them in our present thirty eight and forty and forty nine and fifty many of the circuit cases that appear to be going in different directions are cases that are dealing with classic true that buyers and titties that fit only into the first definition of debt buyer but when it comes to our case here as the colloquy with plaintiff's counsel indicates this case is resolved very simply by looking at the plain text of the statute which take the first ball if you're in the principal business of collecting any debt that is that intention with the definition of creditor which says any creditors any whom your honor i think we need to read them together and i think they are very easily reconciled let me take the first definition of creditor sandton there's a creditor it issues debt and in this circumstance in this case the debt is debt that is owed to it so it is a creditor a person who offers or extends credit or to whom a debt is said now we're going to go into the world of debt collector the targets and the so first problem of six and the definition of the debt collector ok and you were saying that those two should be read together to establish what could you elaborate on your response to that question if with before you move on and i think what i was saying can be read together is responding to the question can there be a circumstance where somebody is both a credit a six now is that what you were asking or honor before the war ok before the war you're asking before the or captures two entities an entity whose principal purpose of which is the collection of any debts and the courts have construed and applied that provision not invoked here to entities where that's all they do they're not creditors they are out are in the true third party debt collection business they're no on a showing that they're collecting debt and that's all they're doing that's collect that are collecting debt many of the entities folks know of by name and that are the defendants in many of the cases cited in the brief the second prong the prong the plaintiffs have attempted to invoke in this case is regularly collects or attempts to collect directly or indirectly dead oh do or do or asserted to be or do another and that's the key distinction in this case the dadt plaintiffs does not dispute that the debt is owed to santander where the activities that are the subject matter of the allegations in the complaint took place when the debt was due to santander where it is not a  collector under the debt collector definition and for the same reasons it is a creditor under the definition of creditor any person who offers or extends credit creating a day debt or surplusage because your assign it and you you then are owed the debt and you wouldn't be doing it for another and there is a clearly pretty clear answer to that because it seems to me there is a reason to assign that for collection because we just handled a case last year palisades where we describe it that it permits the garnishment and permits all the other things to be done in the name of the debt collectors name which facilitates the collection of debt so you assign it for that purpose but then there is a still remission of fees and whatever back to their original that owner for collection well i'm not sure where his argument goes he said they were hired to this one paragraph to use the word higher to collect and of course it doesn't mean they actually did that but the very next paragraph says the way they did that really was that through the purchase of the debt portfolio for cents on the dollar  issues debt twenty five percent of its business and collect seventy five percent of the business now when it issues debt and collects on it is that of that collector on its own that you know it's not your unearned interest quite sa does address that specific circumstance in that case thing they say that the defendant in that exactly like our case defaulted debt into fall when purchased attempted to collect the debt debt to the defendant and the court did have some discussion in that sense you know even granting that at some point in time when this entities business an entity that extends its own credit here had purchased some debt and was collecting it that it might have collected for others that that's not where the proper focus is that doesn't the fact that you had at one point in time collected for another doesn't make you for all purposes a debt collector and particularly when the subject matter of the lawsuit is that that plainly clearly plainly and undisputedly is to the defendant seems to me makes the most they purchased as opposed to doing it for somebody else and they didn't purchase it for somebody else they burst on their own account and when in your honor and when it comes to and i wanted to just make a remark again about the status of the cases i think if we look at schlegel and davidson two cases that are most closely like this case in davidson sounds exactly like this case the court is starting with the analytical distinction on using your own debt or is it  another and then consistently falling through read the statute as a hall maintaining that distinction and then also not analysis in a purist sense is it ignores congress use of the word principle business and regularly was congress you some words that go beyond just the debt involved in the lawsuit when they use the word regularly and principle and i think if you look at the legislative history and some of the preamble i think what the court was trying to capture in the first threshold definition is is that you folks out there that are solely exclusively and laying you're in the business of being debt collectors and you don't do anything else you don't operate as a bank you're not a finance company you're a target of this statute and  again we discuss it in our brief but principal park has targeted independent debt collectors third party debt collectors so so i do believe that that is reconcilable and why congress needed to in the definition of debt collector get those folks under the umbrella as well as their ears who routinely in our air and gaged in and when it comes to the allegations of the complaint collecting debt for another by the way your honor read the abyssinia exception as you do there if there is a need for it and it is exactly for those circumstances where someone gets a transfer that may be in their own name but what's really going on is attempting to collect i think your honors i want to start off by saying well i'm confused because santander just came up in argued completely opposite of what their brief says so sure about one thing in the brief in the brief they argue that the principal purpose test and the rarely collects debts that both of those applied to older do are zero to do another and now they're here today saying that's not the case well they also said that the because of the way they interpret the statute originally they argued that the assigning a section applies to dep ayers now they're in here saying it's not really the case it's meant for the service or of the debt buyers so the argument you know what i if you buy that for the sole purpose of collecting all the wires are covered right under the under the debt collection more so only for the purpose of collecting the debt of another you take an assignment solely for the purpose of collecting the data correct for as a service or minus the service of god however if you're if you're collecting for someone else you can't be the purchaser you can purchase or it is you can be the purchaser and that's what i was a car fine with your colleague was you purchase in order to facilitate the procedures of garnishment collection and maryland has statutes a directly address that over the states do but there is a purpose other than in other words you can purchase the debt and collect it having been the purchaser for someone else that's in other words when you go and collected that you're collecting for any creditor who in the process of collecting his own debts does a b c dear by so that's a recognition i don't know because you have to go the a b c indeed because for instance the first one and he uses the name of someone else now there's none of the bank loyalty that they talked about it's no longer first national bank collecting its own debt they assign it to a subsidiary called a b c collection company and if they do that they are now going to be stuck as a duck but why is congress excluding and originator because if they already didn't one of the main reasons you may want to the definition but when i'm in the legislative history suggests the main reason for distinguishing between a debt collector and a creditor is that a creditor has a continuing interest as with for customer relations and that loyalty will mitigate its conduct where is a debt collector doesn't give a hoot it's just bought this stuff and its own purposes just run it through and get as much as they can and they use abusive tactics now that is what congress explained and that's consistent with that little clause you just read if you do somebody else's name now you've disguised yourself as a debt collector that doesn't get you you lose your benefit as a credit card i think what you think not the way you read it well certainly if you use someone else's that is now going to be treated the collector because they disguised the first national bank in the whole reason for protecting creditors is the loyalty that mitigating circumstances that met with what you raised that are not just being honest i'm a little confused because the you know i'm reading this to say that the exclusion in af is what made you a creditor but for th you weren't a creditor now you are creditor but even though your creditor we're going to put you back into debt collector because you did it isn't your exclusion from the exclusion because you are engaging what looks like guys who are you're gauging in a practice that the statute doesn't condone so it puts it kitschy back it gets you out of the favored status of creditor on the statute because of the way you have decided to conduct the collection process i agree with the first part of what you said kicks you back and then you changed because if you weren't there to begin with how do you get back if you exclusion to an exclusion so just just put you back in the category you would have been a year and not try to use a name other than your own to suggest that a third person is collecting or to collect the debt so just it deprives you of the benefit of the exclusion to a s that one actually i have to say seemed relatively straightforward to me which in enough itself should make me nervous ron or if i go into a restaurant and i want a grilled cheese i don't tell the waitress or the waiter that i had t mushrooms because it was easy pieces because no one can put mushrooms on the grilled cheese and that's why i'm that's why i'm making this analogy is why why would congress make these exclusions it which would have no relevance it has relevance all of these things have relevance to its main purpose is to get to regulate the agency that collectors who are in the business of it and to let creditors pursue their own collection efforts the problem is  the brain of those distinctions is what they're trying to catch they don't want people going through loopholes and and so if you buy that solely for the purpose of collecting that you're going to still be a debt collector if you're buying that as part of your overall business maybe investment business like a portfolio here i'm not sure can they want to get to that but that's the issue before us here a so your points are not frivolous at all these that they as i said the courts are been struggling with this and but i think the task for us is to be guided by the statute and not be seduced by some opinion that uses language that's favorable to one side or the other and we're really not absolutely and i preceded your time i know i know we've run over them but it's an important point  and all i ask is that when when when this is determined when the court decides how to how to interpret what it is under the statute that that it does so in a way that makes it so a creditor and a deck lector can never be the same sluice it seems to me both sides seem to be and congress seems to be in that category too subject to exceptions it sounds to me that if you're a real creditor a genuine creditor or you're genuine debt collector  there's no problem they're mutually exclusive everyone agrees with it even every court has ever decided to greece at that but some of the opinions are don't write it that way thank you all right we're going to come down to greek council on the take a short recess