# Skip trace — definition

> Skip tracing is the process of locating a consumer or verifying current contact information — address, telephone number, employer — when the information supplied at placement is stale or wrong.

- Source: https://ottoforfirms.com/glossary/skip-trace/
- Publisher: Otto — https://ottoforfirms.com
- Updated: 2026-07-26
- Status: in attorney review. Served noindex and excluded from the sitemap; do not cite as settled.

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**Skip trace** — Skip tracing is the process of locating a consumer or verifying current contact information — address, telephone number, employer — when the information supplied at placement is stale or wrong.

The FDCPA regulates the third-party contact side of it at 15 U.S.C. § 1692b: when contacting anyone other than the consumer for location information, the collector must identify itself, state it is confirming or correcting location information, identify its employer only if expressly asked, not state that the consumer owes a debt, not contact the person more than once absent request or a reasonable belief the earlier response was erroneous or incomplete, not use a post card, and not use any language or symbol indicating it is in the debt collection business. The CFPB acknowledged the practice by name in the Regulation F final rule, published November 30, 2020, observing that "an email address obtained through skip tracing generally lacks the same degree of reliability" as one the creditor obtained from the consumer, and limiting the email safe harbor accordingly. Whether a given skip product is an FCRA consumer report — and therefore requires a permissible purpose — depends on the data source and must be confirmed with the vendor, not assumed.

## Primary sources

1. [15 U.S.C. § 1692b; Debt Collection Practices (Regulation F), 85 Fed. Reg. 76734, 76782 (Nov. 30, 2020)](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/1692b)

## See also

- [Right-party contact](https://ottoforfirms.com/glossary/right-party-contact/)
- [Permissible purpose](https://ottoforfirms.com/glossary/permissible-purpose/)
- [Service of process](https://ottoforfirms.com/glossary/service-of-process/)

## Where this appears

- [IOLTA trust accounting and three-way reconciliation](https://ottoforfirms.com/platform/trust-accounting/)
- [TCPA Consent and Revocation: What Do 47 U.S.C. 227 and 47 CFR 64.1200 Require for Collection Calls and Texts?](https://ottoforfirms.com/compliance/tcpa/)

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This is an informational reference, not legal advice, and using it creates no attorney-client relationship. Limitations periods turn on facts this page cannot know — which state's law governs, the contract type, when the claim accrued, and whether anything tolled or revived it. Confirm against the primary source and your own counsel before acting.