Debt Collectors Exploit Facebook To Embarrass You To Friends And Family

[keepinitreal]

November 17, 2010

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."

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

[AngelinaCatHub]

This is ripe for a lawsuit. It is called invasion of privacy. If not true, it is called libel. They need to be very careful as this may make some lawyer big money. 'Hub

[wonderingrov]

That is one reason that only friends can view my profile on Facebook, and I keep all the privacy settings to the most secure level. I noticed 3 or 4 people trying to 'friend' me that I did not know when I was getting the collection calls. I declined all those requests - I'm pretty sure at least a couple of them were collectors trying to get to my friends. If you have a facebook account, make sure only friends can view your profile and stay on top of your security settings - also, make sure your anti-virus and firewall protection on your computer is up-to-date. I followed all these steps - and to my knowledge, none of my Facebook contacts were contacted.

[BKorbust]

Yikes.. When I first read this I though this was a clear violation of the FDCPA. Then I read it again and realized that the original creditor was the one doing this and they are not governed by the FDCPA. This is a real low especially since the creditor was in contact with the debtor. What a bunch of scum bags.

[ryan]

In a million years I would not have imagined creditors doing this on Facebook. How intrusive and under-handed.
Invasion of privacy issues also come into play.

[rdknipp]

ryan & hub - Could you bring an invasion of privacy suit for action on a public forum like facebook?

If not there surely has to be some state consumer statutes that would give for a cause of action - they are always helpful when it's an original creditor outside the scope of the FDCPA. It'll be very interesting to see how this evolves - you know its just the beginning...

[Flamingo]

ryan & hub - Could you bring an invasion of privacy suit for action on a public forum like facebook?

If not there surely has to be some state consumer statutes that would give for a cause of action - they are always helpful when it's an original creditor outside the scope of the FDCPA. It'll be very interesting to see how this evolves - you know its just the beginning...

The problem with what you state above and any social internet website is that people themselves are entering and providing their own private information online and there are disclaimers they agree to when joining these sites. When one puts their name, address, birthday, names of family, friends and information about family and friends out there, it's at their own risk. Many people previously were getting tracked down by information they provided in searching family history/tree sites, etc. I remember my sister providing information on our family in one major site while doing our family tree and if one googled their name, there was all the information you wanted to know about anyone in our family including birthplaces, maiden names, where one lived, etc. It's a free for all out there in internet land and the information cannot be obtained unless you enter it out there or someone puts it out there for you.

The best thing anyone can do is just not make an account and not post your private information and information about family/friends.

[newbie2]

Sadly, invasion of privacy may not come in to play with this type of case. After all, the only way for the creditor to have known about this womans "friends and family" on Facebook is if the woman gave access to the creditor via lax privacy settings. I can see this being argued as a "No expectation of privacy". Now, if the creditor hacked in to the account or back-doored their way in, all bets are off.

[nc73]

First of all why do you all even have Facebook? It's just ripe for things like this. I won't ever use any type of social networking.

[bk2009]

Seriously? Why have a facebook? Because we want to. Because it's a great way to keep up with friends and family, many who are scattered around the country (and some even globally).

That said, lock your pages down. I can't tell you the amount of people who I click on their profile and it leads me to their information page where it says "sorry, only friends are allowed to see this information" but then you click on the wall button and their entire wall is open. You can lock down your info page, giving just enough information out (for instance, mine has my siblings, parents, as well as the high school I attended). If you attempted to contact to contact my siblings or parents they'd tell them to pound salt. People can't even see my list of friends unless I'm friends with them.

[catleg]

If you're paranoid, but still using facebook anyway, you might consider the super logoff

Facebook super logoff explained

[jetsfan2010]

truly sad...

[frogger]

In a million years I would not have imagined creditors doing this on Facebook. How intrusive and under-handed.
Invasion of privacy issues also come into play.

Facebook is a great tool for collections, and there is nothing illegal or immoral about using it to find your contacts if you hide from them. As long as they are not disclosing your personal information to others, there is no lawsuit and no ethical problem. Facebook is just another skip tracing tool.

For giggles, google "Facebait"....