It’s your money. Here’s what you actually need to know about today.
There’s a curfew on debt collectors, and almost nobody uses it
Ask most people what time a debt collector is allowed to call and you’ll get a shrug. The honest answer is that they think collectors can call whenever they want, because that’s what it feels like.
They can’t. Federal law puts a fence around it — nothing before 8 in the morning or after 9 at night, your local time. Some states draw the fence tighter than that.
Which brings me to today: a class action alleges that Capital One’s collection calls broke Florida law by coming in late at night. That’s the claim being made in the filing — no court has found anything yet, and I’ll tell you if that changes.
Why I’m telling you this rather than letting it scroll past: a 10:40pm call doesn’t feel like a legal violation. It feels like being hassled. So people don’t write it down, and a thing you didn’t write down never happened as far as anyone else is concerned.
So here’s what I’d do, and it costs you nothing: next time one comes in outside those hours, note the date, the time, and the number. That’s it. Three pieces of information in your phone’s notes app. If it turns into a pattern, you’re holding the only thing that makes it actionable — and if it doesn’t, you’ve lost thirty seconds.
While you’re in the mood: if you’ve ever disputed a debt in writing, pull your credit report and check that it actually says disputed on it. It’s supposed to. Collectors are required to pass that along, and whether they did is something you can see in about ten minutes — but only if you look.
If you drive a Ram 1500, go read this one now
Stellantis is recalling about 1.2 million Ram 1500 trucks over a seatbelt buckle issue.
I don’t normally run recalls, and I want to be straight with you about why this one’s here: recall notices go to the registered owner. Buy a truck used, move house, or let the registration drift, and the letter goes to somebody else’s mailbox. Which means the people most likely to miss this are the people who bought a second-hand truck — and a seatbelt is not the part you want to find out about later.
Takes two minutes. Go put your VIN into the NHTSA lookup. Then text whoever in your family drives one, because they haven’t done it either.
Money that’s sitting there with a clock on it
Settlements only feel like free money until you notice nobody sends you a reminder. Claim windows close, quietly, and the leftover cash goes back where it came from.
Open right now, all per the filings:
O’Reilly Automotive, an $18.8 million settlement over allegedly unwanted marketing texts
ApolloMD, $4.02 million over a data breach
Atrium Health, $2.1 million over data privacy
Tesla, a settlement over idle fees — the charge for leaving your car plugged in after it finished charging
Why it’s worth ten minutes of your Monday: the text-message ones are the sleeper. You almost certainly don’t remember getting those texts in 2023. The claim doesn’t care whether you remember — it cares whether your number was on the list.
⚠ Check each one’s own deadline on its official claim site before you count on it. I’d rather you find a closed window than trust my summary of one.
The Kia and Hyundai settlement everybody’s got wrong
There’s a Kia and Hyundai theft settlement still open, and it is not the $200 million one you’ve seen going around.
I wrote this up because I kept watching people see the big number, assume it’s the same thing, do the math on what their share might be, and decide it isn’t worth the paperwork. Different settlement. Different math. The one that’s actually open might still be worth your time.
→ The Kia and Hyundai theft settlement that’s still open isn’t the $200 million
If you’re deployed, or you love somebody who is
The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act is one of the strongest consumer protections in American law, and one of the worst-known. It caps interest. It stops some collection cold.
The cruel part is the timing: the people it protects are, by definition, busy being somewhere else. So the protection sits there unused, and creditors do what creditors do.
→ A creditor violated my rights while I was deployed — here’s what to do right now
Forward this one. Somebody you know has a kid deployed and has no idea this exists.
On the podcast this week: your debt probably isn’t the problem
Damon Day and I recorded one I keep thinking about — Your Debt Isn’t the Problem, Your Plan Is.
The part worth your time is the middle bit, about which bills to pay when you can’t pay all of them. Most people spread the money around thin, trying to keep every creditor a little bit happy. It feels responsible. It’s usually the worst thing you can do — you end up behind with everybody instead of current with the ones that can actually hurt you.
We also get into why bankruptcy is a tool rather than a moral failing, which I will keep saying until I’m blue in the face, and then wander into what AI is doing to the value of a college degree.
Why I’m putting it in front of you: the bill-priority thing is the single most useful hour I’ve spent on this podcast, and it’s the exact decision people get wrong in the month before they call me. If you only listen to one stretch, make it that one. I wrote the short version up the same day — pay the pit bull, not the maltese.
One more thing
I cut a section from today’s issue. There were 30 new federal cases filed against the three big credit bureaus in the last three days, and I’m not going to run the number.
A count like that is genuinely interesting to me and does absolutely nothing for you. It doesn’t change a decision you’d make, and there’s nothing to act on. From here on, if an item isn’t either teaching you something you can use or sitting on a clock, it doesn’t go in — even when it’s a number I find fascinating. You’ve got enough people spending your attention on your behalf.
Breadth here, depth there. If you want the longer version — the full write-ups, the case files, the guides — that’s what the Weekday Briefing is for. Get it here.
And if one of these was useful, forward it to one person. That’s genuinely how this list grows, and it’s the only thing I’ll ever ask you for.
— Steve