For purposes of the Collection Agency Act:

(1) Board means the Collection Agency Licensing Board;

(2) Collection agency means and includes:

(a) All persons, firms, corporations, and associations directly or indirectly engaged in soliciting, from more than one person, firm, corporation, or association, claims of any kind owed or due or asserted to be owed or due such solicited person, firm, corporation, or association, and all persons, firms, corporations, and associations directly or indirectly engaged in asserting, enforcing, or prosecuting such claims;

(b) Any person, firm, corporation, or association which, in attempting to collect or in collecting his, her, or its own accounts or claims, uses a fictitious name or any name other than his, her, or its own name which would indicate to the debtor that a third person is collecting or attempting to collect such account or claim; and

(c) Any person, firm, corporation, or association which attempts to or does give away or sell to any person, firm, corporation, or association, other than one licensed under the act, any system or series of letters or forms for use in the collection of accounts or claims which assert or indicate, directly or indirectly, that the claim or account is being asserted or collected by any other person, firm, corporation, or association other than the creditor or owner of the claim or demand;

(3) Collection agency does not mean or include (a) regular employees of a single creditor, (b) banks, (c) trust companies, (d) savings and loan associations, (e) building and loan associations, (f) abstract companies doing an escrow business, (g) duly licensed real estate brokers and agents when the claims or accounts being handled by such broker or agent are related to or are in connection with such brokers’ or agents’ regular real estate business, (h) express and telegraph companies subject to public regulation and supervision, (i) attorneys at law handling claims and collections in their own names and not operating a collection agency under the management of a layperson, (j) any person, firm, corporation, or association handling claims, accounts, or collections under an order or orders of any court, or (k) a person, firm, corporation, or association which, for valuable consideration, purchases accounts, claims, or demands of another and then, in such purchaser’s own name, proceeds to assert or collect such accounts, claims, or demands; and

(4) Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System and Registry means a licensing system developed and maintained by the Conference of State Bank Supervisors and the American Association of Residential Mortgage Regulators for the licensing and registration of mortgage loan originators, mortgage bankers, installment loan companies, and other state-regulated financial services entities and industries.