Pages

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Facebook Warns Debt Collectors About Using Its Service - The Atlantic

Facebook Warns Debt Collectors About Using Its Service - The Atlantic



A Florida debt collector contacted a St. Petersburg woman's Facebook friends in an effort to get her to repay a $362 car loan. The woman, Melanie Beacham, promptly hit the collector, MarkOne Financial, with a civil suit in Pinellas County circuit court.
Though the suit was first filed in August, Beacham's attorney amended it recently, and the story broke nationally yesterday. According to the filing, a MarkOne employee going by the name Jeff Happenstance contacted both Beacham and two of her friends. As you can see in the message above, Happenstance asked the friends to have Beacham contact him without making reference to her debt.


While you may never thought of it this way, Facebook is a perfect tool for tracking down debtors and the people they know. LinkedIn and Twitter are, too.
"Now Facebook does a debt collectors work for them," Beacham's attorney, Billy Howard, who specializes in debt collection harassment, told a Tampa TV station. "Now it's not only family members, it's all of your associates. It's a very powerful tool for debt collectors to use."

2 comments:

Stacey Lang said...

Besides losing your money from scam debt collectors you can also lose your identity and your privacy with forced debt collection.

JMA Credit control said...

JMA credit control, reputed debt collector agency offer commercial debt collection, recovery and other financial services.