For purposes of this division, the following terms have the following meanings:
(a) “Applicant” means a person, including a natural person, partnership, corporation, limited liability company, trust, estate, cooperative, association, or other entity, who applied for a license pursuant to this division.
(b) “California debtor accounts” means accounts that are owned by consumers who reside in California at the time that the consumer makes a payment on the account.
(c) “Collection agency” means a business entity through which a debt collector or an association of debt collectors engage in debt collection.
(d) “Commissioner” means the Commissioner of Financial Protection and Innovation.
(e) “Consumer credit transaction” means a transaction between a natural person and another person in which property, services, or money is acquired on credit by that natural person from the other person primarily for personal, family, or household purposes.
(f) “Consumer debt” or “consumer credit” means money, property, or their equivalent, due or owing, or alleged to be due or owing, from a natural person by reason of a consumer credit transaction. The term “consumer debt” includes a mortgage debt. The term “consumer debt” includes “charged-off consumer debt” as defined in Section 1788.50 of the Civil Code.
(g) “Creditor” means a person who extends consumer credit to a debtor.
(h) “Debt” means money, property, or their equivalent that is due or owning or alleged to be due or owing from a natural person to another person.
(i) “Debt collection” means any act or practice in connection with the collection of consumer debt.
(j) “Debt collector” means any person who, in the ordinary course of business, regularly, on the person’s own behalf or on behalf of others, engages in debt collection. The term includes any person who composes and sells, or offers to compose and sell, forms, letters and other collection media used or intended to be used for debt collection. The term “debt collector” includes “debt buyer” as defined in Section 1788.50 of the Civil Code.
(k) “Debtor” means a natural person from whom a debt collector seeks to collect a consumer debt that is due or owing or alleged to be due or owing from the person.
(l) “Department” means the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation.
(m) “Fund” means the Debt Collection Licensing Fund established pursuant to Section 100006.5.
(n) “Licensee” means a person licensed, conditionally or unconditionally, pursuant to this chapter.
(o) “Nationwide Multistate Licensing System & Registry” means a system of record, created by the Conference of State Bank Supervisors and the American Association of Residential Mortgage Regulators, for nondepository, financial services licensing or registration in participating state agencies, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands, and Guam.
(p) “Person” means a natural person, partnership, corporation, limited liability company, trust, estate, cooperative, association, or other similar entity.
(Amended by Stats. 2023, Ch. 198, Sec. 7. (SB 152) Effective September 13, 2023.)