Debt Collectors Using Facebook To Embarrass Those Who Owe

Not even the tranquility of FarmVille can save you from the long arm of debt collectors. Melanie Beacham says that a collector from MarkOne Financial contacted her relatives about her past due car note via Facebook. She is filing suit alleging that the company is harassing her family. Tampa based consumer attorney Billy Howard of Morgan & Morgan says, "Now Facebook does a debt collectors work for them. Now it's not only family members, it's all of your associates. It's a very powerful tool for debt collectors to use."

Comments

I'm Pretty Sure That's Illegal

[eldavojohn]

I know collection debt law Is hazy as it varies from state to state and sometimes even has caveats internal to cities themselves but I thought there was a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act to protect consumers from crap just like this. I'm not a lawyer and Wikipedia's not exactly the foremost authority on the law but:

Communication with third parties: revealing or discussing the nature of debts with third parties (other than the consumer's spouse or attorney) (Collection agencies are allowed to contact neighbors or co-workers but only to obtain location information; disreputable agencies often harass debtors with a "block party" or "office party" where they contact multiple neighbors or co-workers telling them they need to reach the debtor on an urgent matter.)

And if they posted something on your wall, that could fall under a number of these laws. Hell, if you consider 'Facebook' an embarrassing media:

Contact by embarrassing media, such as communicating with a consumer regarding a debt by post card, or using any language or symbol, other than the debt collector’s address, on any envelope when communicating with a consumer by use of the mails or by telegram, except that a debt collector may use his business name if such name does not indicate that he is in the debt collection business

And if the debt collection's profile wasn't MARKONE DEBT COLLECTOR I'd be looking at that sort of shadiness as well.

Having been the subject of a mysterious $180 debt collection put on my credit report over six years after they allege it happened in 2003 with no attempts to contact me until two months ago, I implore this woman to seek more than just a court order against MarkOne but instead to get the law amended now that social network websites are prevalent. They are a new form of contact medium that exposes far more information than the phone book and the current laws should apply or be updated minimally to reflect this.

If you're wondering about my $180, I contacted them immediately. After getting all my current information so they could commence harassment, they told me to log onto some third party site and contest it. I did. Three weeks later I got a judgment: REMAINS. I was informed that, short of litigious action, that was the extent of my rights in that situation.

Re:I'm Pretty Sure That's Illegal

[clone53421]

If you're wondering about my $180, I contacted them immediately. After getting all my current information so they could commence harassment, they told me to log onto some third party site and contest it. I did. Three weeks later I got a judgment: REMAINS. I was informed that, short of litigious action, that was the extent of my rights in that situation.

I had my own encounter with debt collectors after some medical stuff (it’s nearly impossible to keep all those bills straight – you get the bill from the emergency room. and the hospital. and the doctor. and the weekend doctor. and ... they can’t combine them to make it simple, apparently).

Don’t talk to the debt collectors. Run like hell. They don’t care about you. They just care about the commission they get.

Find out who owns the debt and how to contact them. The collection agency has to tell you this. Contact them. Cut the debt collector out of the loop completely. And I do mean completely. Deal directly with the party who claims that you owe them something; once you settle the account with them, they will notify their debt collector that the debt has been canceled.

In my case it was a bill I’d overlooked; in your case, it might just be a mistake somewhere. But you’ll find out a hell of a lot more from whoever hired the debt collection agency than you’ll find out from the collection agency itself.

Re:I'm Pretty Sure That's Illegal

[pcolaman]

Working for a major financial institution (disclaimer: while I am not going to identify said FI, what I say in no way is a representation or an opinion of the FI itself, but only personal opinion of myself based on experience), I have seen a lot of fraud occur this way. The typical scam going around is that someone calls you, says they are collecting on a debt and that they will soon be initiating legal action against you and it can be easily avoided by paying a percentage and then that they will clear it off the books and erase it permanently from your credit report. Then they ask for your card# (and if they are really bold, they'll ask for the CVV2 code on the back of the card) along with the expiration, and then proceed to create a cloned card and rack up as many fraudulent charges as possible before the bank suspects fraud and shuts the card off. It's become so common that when I see certain transactions, I know what has happened before the person I'm talking to has even said that they had someone call them up in this manner. To be quite honest, debit and credit card fraud is at a very high level currently.

Re:I'm Pretty Sure That's Illegal

[Foobar of Borg]

Here is a unique concept: Pay your bills so your debt doesn't get sold and you don't get called by deb collectors. Oh, and the original debtors generally SELL THE DEBT, so the person who owns the debt is the collection agency.

You know, I've had debt collectors harass me on three separate occasions. You know how many times I actually owed the debt? Zero. And I never paid any of them a penny. The entities accusing me of owing them money were wrong and trying to fish for money.

So, here is a unique concept. Go fuck yourself and stop assuming everyone is guilty until proven innocent.

Re:Easy Solution

[cobrausn]

A. Pay your debts
B. Go to your account settings in Facebook so that people can't mine all this information about you. Pass this tip along to your family and friends.

C. Delete Facebook Account.

Re:So pay your bills

[JWW]

Would this persons situation NOT have been prevented by not simply paying their bills?

1) Erroneous attribution of a debt to you that is not your debt.

2) An error by the company you paid your bill to, making them think you haven't paid when you actually have.

3) Mail/On-line banking/transaction problems

4) Recordkeeping errors at billing company or debt collection company

5) A scam.

There, FIVE things that could get you calls from debt collectors when you pay your bills on time.

I've personally experienced the second one where the company cashed my payment check and did not credit it to my account.
The actually acknowledged that my check was cashed, but still demanded that I pay them again!!! I contacted the Attorney General for my state and they convinced them to stop calling.

Suffice it to say, simply paying your bills does not necessarily keep collectors at bay.

Re:So pay your bills

[darth dickinson]

...and if they call more than 3x in one month you can press charges for harassment...

Hell, if that was true half the debt collectors out there would be out of business. In a past life, I had some calling three times a day.

Re:Easy Solution

[Obfuscant]

I like Facebook because it makes it easy for me to keep in touch with family I wouldn't otherwise have a lot of contact with.

Yes, email is SUCH a hard concept to master.

Why would I want to delete my account?

I don't know. Maybe because it opens you up to publishing personal and private data in an essentially public medium?

Maybe I should get rid of my phone, and Internet service, and any kind of contact information while I'm at it?

If you can't handle email, then yes, maybe.