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: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.