Which place’s debt rules apply—and who can help?

S_MT PASS-02 — Focused precision correction and current-rule/scope addendum

Actual access date: October 24, 2026, Pacific Actual model/mode: GPT-5.6 Sol Pro, regular Chat Relationship to PASS-01: Focused correction to the two saved PASS-01 responses. The composite remains derivative, not a new Montana report and not an independent review. All unaffected PASS-01 findings, tables, examples, limitations, and deferred categories remain preserved.

A. Exact federal replacements and corrected source labels

1. Replacement for PASS-01 paragraph 5 and claim C025

For a transaction actually covered by the Telemarketing Sales Rule’s debt-relief provision, the seller or telemarketer may not request or receive a fee until all applicable conditions in 16 CFR §310.4(a)(5)(i)(A)–(C) have been met:

1. At least one enrolled debt has been renegotiated, settled, reduced, or otherwise altered under a settlement agreement, debt management plan, or comparable valid contract executed by the customer.
2. The customer has made at least one payment pursuant to that agreement between the customer and the creditor or debt collector.
3. When debts are resolved individually, the fee satisfies one of the rule’s two allocation methods:The fee has the same proportional relationship to the total contracted fee as that debt’s enrollment balance has to the entire enrollment balance; orThe fee is a percentage of savings, the percentage remains constant among debts, and savings are measured from the enrollment balance against the amount actually paid to satisfy that debt.

A creditor’s offer alone does not meet these requirements. Neither the customer’s continued ownership or custody of money nor a deposit into a dedicated account establishes that the provider earned a fee. eCFR

Corrected imported claim:

P1 C025: Covered TSR debt-relief fees require a customer-executed valid settlement agreement, debt management plan, or comparable agreement; at least one customer payment under that customer-creditor or customer-debt-collector agreement; and, for individually resolved debts, full compliance with the proportional-enrollment-balance or constant-percentage-of-savings allocation conditions.

This is conditional federal context only. PASS-02 does not determine that the TSR covers every Montana transaction, seller, telemarketer, inbound call, outbound call, attorney arrangement, nonprofit arrangement, or other business model.

2. Replacement qualification for C026 — dedicated accounts

Section 310.4(a)(5)(ii) does not treat a deposit as an earned service fee. Its dedicated-account allowance is conditioned on all of the following:

• The account is maintained at an insured financial institution.
• The customer owns the funds and receives any accrued interest.
• The account administrator is not owned, controlled by, or affiliated with the debt-relief service.
• The administrator neither gives nor accepts compensation for debt-relief referrals.
• The customer may withdraw from the service without penalty and must receive all account funds other than fees already earned in compliance with §310.4(a)(5)(i)(A)–(C), within seven business days of requesting withdrawal.

Thus, customer account ownership, a payment into the account, or a transfer to the administrator does not independently satisfy the service-performance conditions. Federal coverage and every account condition remain transaction-specific holds. eCFR

3. Replacement for the credit-repair paragraph and C027

For telemarketed goods or services represented as removing derogatory information or improving a person’s credit history, record, or rating, §310.4(a)(2) prohibits requesting or receiving payment until both conditions occur:

1. The represented period for providing all promised goods or services has expired.
2. The seller has furnished the person a consumer report from a consumer reporting agency demonstrating the promised results, and that report was issued more than six months after those results were achieved.

The rule also preserves the Fair Credit Reporting Act requirement that a consumer report may be obtained only for a permissible purpose. This is a distinct fee-timing branch; it is not satisfied merely by performing debt settlement, obtaining a creditor concession, or waiting six months from enrollment. PASS-02 does not determine actual TSR credit-repair coverage or CROA coverage. eCFR

The eCFR was freshly refreshed for PASS-02 and displayed Title 16 as current through October 22, 2026. That fresh access is separately identified below; it does not retroactively change PASS-01’s source-access history or turn the same coordinator’s prior Oregon review into independent review. eCFR

4. Replacement authority labels for PASS-01 S015 and S016

Replace only the issuer labels as follows:

• PASS-01 S015: Montana Department of Administration, Banking and Financial Institutions Division — division overview.
• PASS-01 S016: Montana Department of Administration, Banking and Financial Institutions Division — Enforcement Actions.

These are not Montana Department of Justice Banking Division sources. The Department of Administration page describes BFID’s oversight of state-chartered depository institutions and licensed financial-service providers. The enforcement page is an index containing, among other matters, mortgage licensing cases. No underlying order, case record, citator, or exhaustive enforcement history was read for this correction. Neither page replaces the Department of Justice Office of Consumer Protection’s role under Parts 20 and 21. Montana Banking+1

B. Current ARM rule and standalone-counseling resolution

B1. ARM 23.19.1005 — qualified current-rule conclusion

The recovered primary rulemaking chain establishes the following:

• In December 2005, proposed New Rule V contained the four provisions reproduced in PASS-01: a $75 initial consultation ceiling; a monthly ceiling equal to the lower of $50 or 15% of the monthly payment; aggregation of all one-time and recurring charges into those categories regardless of label; and a requirement that fees for unrelated services be reasonable and not tied to counseling or debt management. Montana SOS
• The January 26, 2006 adoption notice adopted New Rules I through V as proposed, with stated changes only to Rules I and III. Rule V therefore was adopted without a stated textual change. Montana SOS
• The earlier August 2005 proposal, MAR Notice 2-61-167, was expressly not enacted. Its proposed figures are not current law and are excluded from this analysis. Montana SOS
• The February 2006 transfer notice mapped former ARM 2.61.1005 to ARM 23.19.1005. The underlying agency transfer authorized by HB 425 was effective July 1, 2005; the later ARM publication and renumbering should not be conflated with that substantive agency-transfer date. Montana SOS+1
• The current official Montana rules portal identifies ARM 23.19.1005 as Effective, but its current rule-body route returned HTTP 405 to the browsing tool. Montana Administrative Rules
• A freshly read secondary current compilation reproduces the same four clauses and records the original effective and transfer history. Legal Information Institute

Result: PASS-01 C017–C019 may be upgraded from merely provisional to high-confidence, qualified currentness. The $75, lower-of-$50-or-15%, and anti-relabeling provisions are supported by the official adoption chain, the current official portal’s “Effective” status, and a matching current secondary reproduction. The remaining qualification is that the complete current rule body was not directly retrievable from the official portal in PASS-02.

This does not amount to operational or publication acceptance, and it does not establish that no later material exists outside the retrieved rule history.

B2. Exceptional circumstances, waivers, and indexing

MCA §30-14-2010(4)(d) provides that, absent “exceptional circumstances” defined in department rules, the total monthly fee may not exceed the rule-established amount. The retrieved text of ARM 23.19.1005 itself contains no exceptional-circumstances definition. No verified current separate rule defining that term was recovered through the current official portal searches conducted in this focused pass. Montana Code Annotated+1

Accordingly:

• PASS-02 does not conclude that an exception does not exist.
• It does not authorize an above-cap charge.
• It does not infer a waiver, CPI escalator, or indexed amount.
• No exceptional-circumstances example may be modeled until the applicable definition, approval process, or controlling interpretation is located and read.

The exact exception remains an affirmative gap, rather than a reason to discard the otherwise supported ordinary $75 and monthly fee limits.

B3. ARM 23.19.1001 — current $1,000 government license fee

The official 2009 proposal sought to reduce the annual consumer-debt-management license fee from $5,000 to $1,000, payable by February 1. The final notice says the rule was amended as proposed. The current official Montana rules search rendering states $1,000, payable annually on or before February 1, and records an effective date of July 17, 2009. Montana SOS+3

Corrected C022 status: The $1,000 annual government license fee and February 1 deadline are now supported by the final adoption chain and current official rule rendering. Direct opening of the current rule-body URL still returned HTTP 405, so the access-format limitation remains, but the amount is no longer held merely because the operational DOJ page was the only support.

The $1,000 is a provider licensing charge. It is not established as a consumer pass-through fee.

B4. Standalone counseling versus licensed DMP activity

The 2006 adoption response stated that the rules applied only to consumer-debt-management operations as defined in the code and that a license was unnecessary when a person provided only credit counseling. Montana SOS

That response can be reconciled with the current statutory text without treating it as a universal counseling exemption:

• Section 30-14-2002(1) makes Part 20 applicable to a person providing or offering debt management plans to Montana residents.
• Section 30-14-2003(2) defines a “credit counseling service” as a person providing or offering DMP services for consideration.
• A DMP is the written arrangement under which the service receives consumer money for creditor distribution.
• Once an entity fits the defined “credit counseling service” category, §30-14-2004(1) bars it from providing or offering DMPs or other consumer credit-counseling services to Montana consumers without a license. Montana Code Annotated+2

Bounded reconciliation: An entity genuinely providing only standalone education or counseling, without providing, offering, or holding itself out as offering a DMP and without receiving consumer funds for creditor distribution, appears outside Part 20’s defined DMP-provider entry point. But the 2006 response is not a blanket safe harbor for:

• An entity that also provides or offers DMPs.
• Counseling delivered by or through a licensed-category DMP provider.
• An affiliate structure designed to separate counseling nominally from DMP operations.
• A provider whose marketing, intake, referral, compensation, or fund-handling facts establish DMP activity.

No controlling current Montana interpretation or decision resolving those edge cases was verified. PASS-01 C006 should therefore be narrowed rather than deleted.

Minimal ARM version and status matrix

C. Small operational-route qualifications

C1. DOJ provider procedure page

The direct DOJ provider-procedure URL continued to return HTTP 403. The official search rendering nevertheless identifies the page and reports, among other operational information, annual debt-management license expiration on February 1 and debt-settlement registration with a $250 filing charge. Montana Department of Justice

The preserved coordinator rendering additionally recorded the settlement January 31 expiration and January remittance/renewal instructions. Those details remain supplied/reused search-rendered operational material, not a freshly opened application page, statutory effective date, or provider approval. The displayed page-update or search-index date is not treated as legal effectiveness.

C2. OCP-801 debt-settlement checklist

The complete eight-page parsed form was available and the materially relevant fields were read:

• C2 asks whether the applicant uses lead generators and requests identifying and contractual-control information.
• D8 requests all fees and charges used with Montana consumers, including charges involving third-party designees.
• D10 requests advertisements made by the provider or others, including lead generators acting on its behalf. Montana Department of Justice

These are application information requests, not statutory safe harbors. The form’s “Licensing Application” title, shorthand, older revision date, refund abbreviation, or other form language does not displace Part 21’s registration terminology or operative statutory text. No conclusion is drawn that a disclosed lead generator, designee fee, advertisement, or affiliated law firm is lawful merely because the form asks about it.

C3. Public lookup route

The official DOJ “Debt Relief” page remained inaccessible by direct opening, but its official search rendering identifies both a Licensed Debt Management Companies section and a Registered Debt Settlement Companies section. That narrows PASS-01’s route gap: an official list route exists. Montana Department of Justice+1

It does not establish:

• That the search-rendered list was successfully opened live on October 24, 2026.
• That every displayed row was checked.
• That any particular provider remains licensed or registered.
• That older 2018 or 2019 PDF leads establish 2026 status.

PASS-01 C028 remains correct as a methodological claim: existence of a procedure or indexed list is not proof of a named provider’s present authorization.

Focused PASS-02 source register

Focused PASS-02 claim table

Boundary-only corrections to preserved examples

Example 3: All preserved arithmetic remains unchanged. Debt B’s $900 becomes potentially requestable only after Debt B has a customer-executed valid agreement, the customer makes at least one payment under that customer-creditor or customer-debt-collector agreement, and the same compliant allocation method remains in use. If Debt B has only a creditor offer, the preserved result remains $600 potentially earned for Debt A—assuming Debt A met every condition—and $2,400 still contingent. A dedicated-account deposit does not change that result.

Example 4: The $36 ordinary monthly ceiling, $40 combined recurring charges, and $4 excess remain arithmetically correct under the retrieved rule. The evidentiary support for the ordinary rule is stronger after PASS-02, but no exceptional-circumstances adjustment is modeled. The separate $75 initial ceiling is not silently deducted from the same $240 monthly payment and does not authorize a combined-cycle fee.

No other worked example is changed.

Focused coverage and gap table

Researcher self-check

Freshly accessed or refreshed in PASS-02

• Current eCFR §310.4, including the complete relevant text of subsections (a)(2), (a)(5)(i)(A)–(C), and (a)(5)(ii)(A)–(E).
• The bounded official Montana Register pages for the 2005 proposal and nonenactment notice, the 2006 adoption and transfer notices, and the 2009 proposal and final amendment.
• Current official MCA §§30-14-2002, 2003, 2004, and 2010.
• The official current ARM search-rendered entries for 23.19.1001 and 23.19.1005.
• The secondary current reproduction of ARM 23.19.1005.
• The OCP-801 parsed PDF, with reliance limited to the specified form fields.
• The Department of Administration BFID overview and enforcement index.
• Official DOJ search-rendered provider and debt-relief routes.

Supplied or reused without being reclassified as fresh PASS-01 access

• The saved PASS-01 composite, all unaffected findings, source and claim registers, examples, arithmetic, and coverage table.
• The coordinator’s prior Oregon reading of the federal provisions, used only as corroborating reuse after the fresh federal refresh.
• Search-rendered operational details beyond what the fresh snippets themselves displayed.
• The coordinator’s preserved table counts, hash checks, and prior full-form parse history.

Failed or access-limited routes

• The official current ARM 23.19.1001 and 23.19.1005 body routes returned HTTP 405.
• The direct DOJ provider-procedure and Debt Relief pages returned HTTP 403.
• No current live provider-list body was opened.
• No official current exceptional-circumstances definition was recovered.

Not read or resolved

• A complete current official ARM subchapter body and full amendment history beyond the bounded notices.
• Complete post-2025 Montana session-law and future-effective-law review.
• Complete TSR definitions and exemptions.
• CROA applicability.
• Named-provider licensing or registration status.
• Underlying BFID enforcement orders or cases.
• Montana controlling court decisions, declaratory rulings, and complete agency interpretations.
• Every expressly deferred state category.

No independent review, Chrome control, new tab creation, Deep Research, Work mode, API workflow, application filing, regulator contact, purchase, account change, private-data access, local write, provider approval, operational approval, A066 acceptance, parent-dossier acceptance, or publication-readiness determination occurred.

REPORT PARTIAL — focused PASS-02 corrections completed; all stated holds remain.

END S_MT PASS-02