Definitions

(1)Credit counseling means providing specialized personal and group counseling services to individuals of the general public who are suffering or who may suffer economic hardship because of the extension of credit; acting as agents for such individuals in seeking to resolve their economic difficulties; or receiving from such individuals money or other things of value for disbursement to one or more of their creditors.

(2)Credit counseling does not include:

(a)providing counseling services by employers to their employees without charges;

(b)providing counseling services by organizations not organized for profit and organized principally for purposes other than providing such counseling services, without charge or at a nominal charge;

(c)providing counseling services and the disbursement of proceeds of credit transactions on behalf of actual or potential debtors by persons who regularly act as creditors and who offer such services or disburse such proceeds without direct COL120106 CH. 7 NONPROFIT CONSUMER CREDIT COUNSELING AGENCIES compensation therefor and in furtherance of their credit business;

(d)activities of title insurers and abstract companies in doing an escrow business;

(e)the business of advising, counseling or directing persons in their investments and in the organization and management of their affairs or the business of managing income or property, by their full-time employees or under an exclusive contract, the primary purpose of which is not the liquidation of existing indebtedness.

(3)Agency means a nonprofit consumer credit counseling agency organized under this Chapter.