PACE Regulatory Compliance & Ethical Standards 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) prohibits debt collectors from contacting a consumer at their workplace if the collector knows the employer:
- Requires employees to submit to credit checks
- Disapproves of such communications (Correct answer)
- Is a competitor of the debt collection agency
- Has more than 50 employees
Correct answer: Disapproves of such communications
The FDCPA prohibits workplace contact when the collector knows or has reason to know the employer disapproves of such calls.
Question 2: Which of the following represents a conflict of interest that a contact center agent must disclose?
- Having a personal relationship with a customer whose account the agent handles (Correct answer)
- Working overtime hours during peak season
- Disagreeing with a company policy during a team meeting
- Using a personal phone to call in sick
Correct answer: Having a personal relationship with a customer whose account the agent handles
A personal relationship with a customer whose account an agent manages creates a conflict of interest that must be disclosed to management.
Question 3: Under the CAN-SPAM Act, commercial email messages must include which of the following?
- The sender's physical mailing address (Correct answer)
- The recipient's opt-in confirmation date
- A toll-free phone number for opt-out requests
- The IP address of the sending server
Correct answer: The sender's physical mailing address
CAN-SPAM requires every commercial email to include a valid physical postal address of the sender.
Question 4: An agent handling a complaint realizes the customer's issue stems from a systemic product defect affecting many users. The most ethical next step is to:
- Resolve only the individual customer's issue and close the ticket
- Escalate the pattern to management or quality assurance for investigation (Correct answer)
- Advise the customer to contact the product team directly
- Offer a courtesy credit and avoid mentioning the defect
Correct answer: Escalate the pattern to management or quality assurance for investigation
Identifying systemic issues ethically requires escalation so the root cause can be investigated and broader customer harm prevented.
Question 5: Which standard specifically addresses security requirements for organizations that process, store, or transmit payment card data?
- SOX
- ISO 27001
- PCI DSS (Correct answer)
- NIST CSF
Correct answer: PCI DSS
PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) sets requirements for all entities that handle cardholder data.
Question 6: A supervisor instructs an agent to tell customers that a promotion expires 'today' when it actually runs for another week. This instruction violates which ethical standard?
- Confidentiality
- Regulatory neutrality
- Honesty and non-deception (Correct answer)
- Customer segmentation ethics
Correct answer: Honesty and non-deception
Creating false urgency by misrepresenting promotion timelines is a deceptive practice that violates honesty standards and may breach FTC regulations.
Question 7: State-level 'mini-TCPA' laws differ from the federal TCPA in that they often:
- Apply only to B2B communications
- Impose stricter consent requirements or broader definitions of autodialer (Correct answer)
- Exempt political campaign calls entirely
- Require federal preemption before taking effect
Correct answer: Impose stricter consent requirements or broader definitions of autodialer
Many state laws such as Florida's FTSA expand upon federal TCPA requirements with stricter consent rules or broader autodialer definitions.
PACE Regulatory Compliance & Ethical Standards 3
The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) prohibits debt collectors from contacting a consumer at their workplace if the collector knows the employer: