insideARM’s Membership Groups 2023 Impact

NEW YORK, N.Y. — There’s more to insideARM than just the daily news. In addition to bringing analysis and the most important news of the day in an easy-to-digest format straight to your inbox, insideARM has two membership groups, the Consumer Relations Consortium and Research Assistant. Our members enjoyed a busy, helpful, and impactful 2023 

Who participates in Research Assistant and the Consumer Relations Consortium? 

Research Assistant members are compliance professionals who want to connect with their peers and get the answers they need to their pressing issues in real-time. The Consumer Relations Consortium is for executives and leaders of large-scale ARM industry organizations who want to stay connected to other large industry players and actively participate in pushing the industry forward.  

Research Assistant in 2023 

For ARM industry participants who feel siloed regarding compliance and want the benefit of communicating and collaborating with peers in the industry, we have insideARM’s Research Assistant. Research Assistant members can crowd-source questions and get answers from their peers anytime. Sara Woggerman, President of ARM Compliance Business Solutions, hosts our weekly peer calls, where we brainstorm solutions to current pain points.  The Research Assistant team provides templates and resources to save our members time, including our state-by-state law matrix.  

We covered hundreds of topics throughout 2023 on our Peer Group calls. Here’s a sample of some of them.  

• Digital marketing through social media and how to use it 
• Using emojis in emails to consumers 
• How to address threats of harm from consumers 
• The right time to text and email compliantly 
• State licensing challenges and solutions 
• How to identify gaps and convey these gaps to operations.  
• How to handle and implement various state law updates 
• The best way to handle litigious consumers 
• Call monitoring and analytics 
• Collectors and wearable technology 

To learn more about Research Assistant, click here. 

Membership is as low as $99/mo. To sign up, click here.  

Consumer Relations Consortium in 2023 

The Consumer Relations Consortium is our premium membership group designed for larger participants in the ARM industry. The CRC believes that Debt Collection and Consumer Protection are not mutually exclusive ideas; they can and should coexist.  

CRC members meet regularly via Zoom to discuss the most pertinent operational, legal, and advocacy issues of the day. All CRC members can participate and provide input without being part of an elected board or selected committee. The CRC is truly your seat at the table for the issues that matter to your business. Our Legal Advisory Board, comprised of some of the best and brightest ARM industry attorneys in the business, ensures that we understand the implications of current legal trends and regulatory updates. 

Here are some of the things that ALL CRC members had the opportunity to do in 2023: 

• Connect every two weeks on Zoom to level-set on the issues affecting large ARM industry participants 
• Meet virtually with the FCC regarding texting challenges 
• Meet with the CDIA in person regarding credit report challenges 
• In-person discussion regarding the over-regulation of the collection industry with the American Law Institue concerning its research project on Legal collections  
• Meet virtually and in person with the CFPB to discuss challenges affecting the ARM industry 
• Engage in an in-person discussion with Congressman Andy Barr  
• Provide input and influence the conversation between CRC members and Patrick McHenry’s senior House Financial Services Committee staffer.  

Additionally, the CRC impacted the industry by 

• Filing comments across multiple states(see here, here, and here). Twice in 2023, the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation adopted the CRC’s recommendations verbatim (see here and here). 
• Filed comments with the CFPB regarding its personal financial data rights proposal, shame list proposal, and Statement on Abusive Acts and Practices.   

To learn more about the CRC, click here.

To start the membership application process, click here. 

So, what does 2024 have in store? 

The CRC will continue to meet virtually and in person with each other and with state and federal regulators to address the most pressing issues of the day.  Additionally, now that insideARM is part of Auriemma Roundtables, CRC members will have the opportunity to meet with Auriemma’s creditor clients in cultivated closed-door settings.   

At the start of 2024, we’ll continue our discussions with the CDIA about metro II issues and consumer attorney-manufactured lawsuits. CRC Director, Missy Meggison, has been asked to be a formal advisor on the American Law Institute’s legal collections project and will attend project meetings. We’ll be launching a project to curb the significant influx of templated BBB complaints. Our objectives will evolve to meet the day’s issues, and we’ll continue to engage with all CRC members on these topics. 

In 2024, Research Assistant will continue to host our weekly collaborative meetings, but we’ll also incorporate workshops into these meetings. Research Assistant members will have the opportunity to work together to develop a Cybersecurity Incident Response policy that meets the needs and challenges of today and a credit reporting policy that evolves with the changing climate. Working together instead of alone will save Research Assistant members time and help them better protect their organization.