10News: Debt collectors utilize Facebook to embarrass those who owe

[JMS]

http://www.wtsp.com/news/mostpop/story.aspx?storyid=156762

Debt collectors utilize Facebook to embarrass those who owe

Tampa, Florida -- Debt collectors can be relentless and downright rude on the phone, but now a St. Petersburg woman is filing suit alleging the company that financed her car loan began harassing family members over the social networking website Facebook.

Melanie Beacham says she fell behind on her car payment after getting sick and taking a medical leave from work. She contacted MarkOne Financial to explain the situation but says the harassing phone calls, as many as 20 per day, kept coming. Then one day she got a call from her sister saying the company contacted her in Georgia.

"I was telling her, 'No way, because you're not even a reference,'" said Beacham, who later found out MarkOne contacted her sister and other relatives via Facebook.

Beacham says the company claimed they were doing nothing wrong but, upset over what happened, she contacted Tampa based consumer attorney Billy Howard of Morgan & Morgan.

"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," says Howard.

He believes Facebook will soon become a regular method for contact if nothing is done.

"It's getting the desired result, and that is to start a domino effect of panic and embarrassment among family and friends, and people will do anything to stop that."

Howard has now filed a first of its kind lawsuit against MarkOne asking a judge to ban the company from using Facebook and other social networking websites to contact friends and family members over a debt.

10 News was unable to reach MarkOne Financial for comment Monday regarding the suit filed in Pinellas County.

Beacham hopes the lawsuit will keep debt collectors from exploiting consumers on Facebook.

"Nobody should have to go through what I went through," said Beacham. "I was hurt because I just felt I didn't need my family going through that."

[SkinInsite]

Keep your profile private?

[Goaldeje]

That's ****ed up. I can understand using Facebook to try to collect debts, but contacting and harassing the family? Good for her for suing.

[Corcaigh]

If I was a relative I'd be pissed off at her for exposing them on the web like that.

Maybe people should try to protect the privacy of themselves and loved ones.

[JMS]

Keep your profile private?

If it's an effective means of debt collection what makes you think Facebook wouldn't sell debt collectors your list of friends and family? They could easily do so and cover up the sale. It's not like the debt collectors today tell folks where they collect their information. It's also not like Facebook isn't a free service which makes 100% of their money already by selling information about their users.

That's ****ed up. I can understand using Facebook to try to collect debts, but contacting and harassing the family? Good for her for suing.

Yes good for her, only what law did the collectors break? The really interesting thing about this story is that the lady is shocked and outraged by this outragous infringement on her privacy; but really that's a reaction to her own ignorance of how data is collected and shared on US citizens every day in the information age.

[JMS]

If I was a relative I'd be pissed off at her for exposing them on the web like that.

Maybe people should try to protect the privacy of themselves and loved ones.

You are assuming her profile was exposed and the loan company didn't just buy her information from facebook. It's not like facebook is a paid for service or that they hide the fact that they sell information about their users as their only source of income....

[sacase]

Its against the law to discuess collection attempts with other people. What the company was doing was illegal and they will lose.

[frommd]

http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs27-debtcoll.htm

May a debt collector contact my neighbors or family members about my debt?

Not if the collector knows your name and telephone number and could have contacted you directly. When contacting your family members including minors or neighbors to find out how to locate you, the collector:

Cannot tell others you owe a debt or discuss details of the account.

Must identity himself, (by name, but not as a debt collector).

Must identity the name of the collection agency only if asked.

Can only contact the party once unless the collection agency has reason to believe the person has new information.

Cannot leave information about a debt on a third party's answering machine or voice mail service.

[sacase]

If it's an effective means of debt collection what makes you think Facebook wouldn't sell debt collectors your list of friends and family? They could easily do so and cover up the sale. It's not like the debt collectors today tell folks where they collect their information. It's also not like Facebook isn't a free service which makes 100% of their money already by selling information about their users.

Yes good for her, only what law did the collectors break? The really interesting thing about this story is that the lady is shocked and outraged by this outragous infringement on her privacy; but really that's a reaction to her own ignorance of how data is collected and shared on US citizens every day in the information age.

Fiar Debt Collection Act

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre18.shtm

a collector may contact other people – but only to find out your address, your home phone number, and where you work. Collectors usually are prohibited from contacting third parties more than once. Other than to obtain this location information about you, a debt collector generally is not permitted to discuss your debt with anyone other than you, your spouse, or your attorney.

[rictus58]

Fiar Debt Collection Act

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre18.shtm

a collector may contact other people – but only to find out your address, your home phone number, and where you work. Collectors usually are prohibited from contacting third parties more than once. Other than to obtain this location information about you, a debt collector generally is not permitted to discuss your debt with anyone other than you, your spouse, or your attorney.

Bingo.

I'll add that I did debt collection for 4.5 years. If they are utilizing FB, they are very poor at their Job. There are numerous avenues a debt collector can use. FB seems to be a dead-end street that will yield little in the wya of results. If the story is indeed true (and who know with the way jounalists operate in the current climate), the debt collecter should be fired, and the agency heavily fined.

[TheGreatBuzz]

I'm outraged at some of the acts of debt collection agencies (20 calls a day?) but I also don't know how much I like how much their hands are tied. Lets not forget that people who are being called did not pay for something they agreed to. And a company is trying to get what its rightfully owed.

Now let flow the stories of everyones experience about how it was a mistake or they had a REALLY good reason for not paying their bills. But don't forget there are millions of people who got in over their head by their own fault and now don't want someone calling them asking for their money.

[rictus58]

I'm outraged at some of the acts of debt collection agencies (20 calls a day?) but I also don't know how much I like how much their hands are tied. Lets not forget that people who are being called did not pay for something they agreed to. And a company is trying to get what its rightfully owed.

Now let flow the stories of everyones experience about how it was a mistake or they had a REALLY good reason for not paying their bills. But don't forget there are millions of people who got in over their head by their own fault and now don't want someone calling them asking for their money.

Thier hands aren't exactly tied. There IS a lot of leeway. I could call your brother to attempt to get UTD info on your where-abouts. I could find out where you work and call and leave messages. I could call upto 3x per day (legally) but only leave 1 message per phone number per day. So if I have a home,cell, and work number for you, I could call you up to 9x per day and leave you up to 3 messages per day.

But yes, people frequently don't want to own up to their own failings.

If she fell behind on her car payment, why didn't they repo her car?

[HOF44]

Don't care for debt collection companies myself, not the harassing type anyway. If you are owed the money file a claim in court and collect it as provided by a judgment. To much shady business in the collections arena in my opinion.

[artmonkforHOF]

I'm just going to say it: this lady is an idiot and I have no sympathy for her at all-well some for her illness, but that's it. 1) don't buy things you can't afford. 2) if you have to take out a loan for a purchase, get some insurance in case you lose your job, medical emergency etc. 3) This lady thinks the only people who look at her profile on Facebook are "friends", because no one sends a facebook request asking you to add "your debt collector" 4) even if she wins, she will still have to pay off the debt and the legal fees. 5) she acts as if she did nothing wrong. Firstly she did not repay her debt and then she did not make sufficient arrangements with her creditor to pay them back, and then decides "well they don't want to forgive the loan since I was sick, so I will just ignore them" which leaves the collector with no choice but to start contacting friends and family in order to get back in contact with the debtor. Had she acted like an adult and taken responsibility for her actions, then all of this could have been avoided.

The burning question the article did not touch on was what happened to the car? did they repo it or does she still have it? If she still has the car and is not making payments on it, I am fine with her suing for the facebook flap, as long as the creditor can counter-sue for stupidity and a false sense of self entitlement.

[rictus58]

Don't care for debt collection companies myself, not the harassing type anyway. If you are owed the money file a claim in court and collect it as provided by a judgment. To much shady business in the collections arena in my opinion.

Except, if the loan is unsecured...like C/C debt...they can't do this.Unless the C/C company has a good case you had no intention of paying the debt back. I've seen cases where the C/C company took people ot arbitration and won...then they put a lien on their house or garnished wages.

[HOF44]

Except, if the loan is unsecured...like C/C debt...they can't do this.Unless the C/C company has a good case you had no intention of paying the debt back. I've seen cases where the C/C company took people ot arbitration and won...then they put a lien on their house or garnished wages.

Sure you can get a judgment on CC debt, and unsecured debt. This gives you the right to garnish wages, freeze bank accounts, put liens on real property. I am all for creditors getting paid, but use the legal system. Not harassment.

[rictus58]

Sure you can get a judgment on CC debt, and unsecured debt. This gives you the right to garnish wages, freeze bank accounts, put liens on real property. I am all for creditors getting paid, but use the legal system. Not harassment.

If you abide by the laws, it's not harrassment. Of course, a lot of calls would be prevented if people would just call back their creditors. Just because you (generally speaking, not you personally) like to hide from debt collectors, that doesn't mean they'll go away. In fact, it makes them far more tenacious.

I'd talk to people who would be 5 months behind...THEN they decide to finally pick up the phone. They could have saved themselved hundreds of dollars if they just spoke with us on day 1.

[HOF44]

If you abide by the laws, it's not harrassment. Of course, a lot of calls would be prevented if people would just call back their creditors. Just because you (generally speaking, not you personally) like to hide from debt collectors, that doesn't mean they'll go away. In fact, it makes them far more tenacious.

I'd talk to people who would be 5 months behind...THEN they decide to finally pick up the phone. They could have saved themselved hundreds of dollars if they just spoke with us on day 1.

My advice to ANYONE with a call from a debt collector is to dispute the charge and demand to have the case heard in court. Much like mortgage companies do much of this debt is sold to collectors. The paperwork supporting the debt must come with it in full and correctly to allow collection. My bet is many companies go the harassment route because of weak supporting documents or unscrupulous lending practices.

If you legally owe it the court will find against you and the entity you owe will be allowed effective remedies to collect their debt. If there case does not hold water all will end. Either way it cuts out months of calls and crap.

[rictus58]

My advice to ANYONE with a call from a debt collector is to dispute the charge and demand to have the case heard in court. Much like mortgage companies do much of this debt is sold to collectors. The paperwork supporting the debt must come with it in full and correctly to allow collection. My bet is many companies go the harassment route because of weak supporting documents or unscrupulous lending practices.

If you legally owe it the court will find against you and the entity you owe will be allowed effective remedies to collect their debt. If there case does not hold water all will end. Either way it cuts out months of calls and crap.

I can't speak as to what a "collection agency" does. I never worked for one. I worked directly for the bank. IIt wouldn't end up with a collection agency until after 6 months worth of bank employees working the file. At that point, the bank is required to write the balance off as a bed debt.

And with C/C, because it's unsecured, they cannot take you to arbitration unless they felt the customer intended to never pay the balance or you were check kiting.

[TheGreatBuzz]

My advice to ANYONE with a call from a debt collector is to dispute the charge and demand to have the case heard in court. Much like mortgage companies do much of this debt is sold to collectors. The paperwork supporting the debt must come with it in full and correctly to allow collection. My bet is many companies go the harassment route because of weak supporting documents or unscrupulous lending practices.

If you legally owe it the court will find against you and the entity you owe will be allowed effective remedies to collect their debt. If there case does not hold water all will end. Either way it cuts out months of calls and crap.

That is definetly a better idea then just manning up and saying "hey I know I owe you money but can't handle the current terms....can we work something out?" Most companies would rather you paid $10 a month instead of $0.

[rictus58]

Most companies would rather you paid $10 a month instead of $0.

Again, I can only speak from my area of knowledge...but no....no really. If you owed $1000 on a c/c bill, you sending the C/C $10 is going to do nothing. We were frequently audited. When we set someone up on a payment plan to repay debts, we had to justify it. How did it help the customer? They aren't going to knock your APR to 0% and let you pay it off over 100 months. The bank would sooner let it charge off and sell the debt for 10% to get their $ up front, and get the bad debt off the books.

[HOF44]

That is definetly a better idea then just manning up and saying "hey I know I owe you money but can't handle the current terms....can we work something out?" Most companies would rather you paid $10 a month instead of $0.

The point is many debt collection companies are very shady businesses. They don't like to sue because some of what they are doing is often illegal. These debts sometimes are sold multiple times. Some of the originating loans are even predatory.

[Destino]

That is definetly a better idea then just manning up and saying "hey I know I owe you money but can't handle the current terms....can we work something out?" Most companies would rather you paid $10 a month instead of $0.

That sounds nice but knowing people in debt collection this simply isn't the case. It's hard to understand how it works unless you realize how people get paid. Debt collectors get paid via RESULTS and coming back to a client saying "hey I didn't get your money but you can expect 10 bucks a month" isn't going to make anyone any money.

Once you're in debt collection they'll demand the minimum they need to satisfy their clients and not a penny less. You send them 10 bucks and that money pays a small percentage of penalties and nothing more.

When there is money to be made the rules will be broken. This is true in any field in which pay comes from a sale or completion of anything.

[TheGreatBuzz]

Again, I can only speak from my area of knowledge...but no....no really. If you owed $1000 on a c/c bill, you sending the C/C $10 is going to do nothing. We were frequently audited. When we set someone up on a payment plan to repay debts, we had to justify it. How did it help the customer? They aren't going to knock your APR to 0% and let you pay it off over 100 months. The bank would sooner let it charge off and sell the debt for 10% to get their $ up front, and get the bad debt off the books.

I was more refering to debt collectors. this is because they know that after 7 years from last activity, it will drop off your credit report and they more or less can't do anything. But if they can just get you to make a $10 payment, that shows activity and that clock starts over. I know this because my credit just got a lot better from a account that was reported 7.5 years ago. Although I said I didn't owe what they said I did. That's a different story for a different thread though.

[steveo21]

I have a friend of mine that was getting super nasty calles from a DC. Send off a DV with C&D in it and they never heard back. Then it was shipped to a law firm. He DV the new Collection Attorney this time with C&D with election of arbitration. It would of cost the Law firm and creditor to much money to deal with JAMS so he got a Mutual dismissal. Then sued the first Collection agency for about 7 Violations and won.