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Debt collectors utilize Facebook to embarrass those who owe

theangryamerican

Can't stop the signal...
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Debt collectors utilize Facebook to embarrass those who owe | Tampa Bay, St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Sarasota | WTSP.com 10 News

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.
 
If there aren't already laws against this, there definitely should be.
 
Agreed, debt collectors should have no business dealing with anyone except the party directly involved. If these sharks can't get their money, they have plenty of legal options open to them, without denigrating to outright harassment and embarrassment. Typically, I'm not a fan of the litigiousness of our society, but in this case, that company would find themselves being slapped with a Summons so fast it'd make their heads spin.

Until this industry is more firmly regulated, this should serve as a further warning to people to watch what kind of things they're exposing themselves to online. :prof
 
They better watch out. Ohio's Attorney General went after contractors to a debt agency that were harassing people. I got $343.00 from the class action suit because I was one of the people they harassed. I owed no one but they had me confused with someone in Iowa (not even my state) and it took some doing to get them to stop. I was so infuriated I reported them to their local BBB. A few months later I get a letter from Ohio's Attorney General that due to the law suit I had at least $200.00 coming to me, and to sign a form. I was a little skeptical but sure enough a few months later the check came in the mail for over $200.00.
 
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You should be able to update your permissions to avoid this sort of nonsense.
 
Unfortunately allot of people don't know about the public nature of information on myspace and facebook. They are just not that experienced on the internet.
 
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