Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Debt Collectors Stalking, Publicly Shaming People Through Facebook

Now that we have debtor's prison again, it's only natural that Americans who owe money be publicly shamed for the sin of being broke during a devastating recession.
A Tampa woman who fell behind on her car payments after having to take sick leave from work was surprised to hear about it from friends and family. Turns out the credit agency, which was also calling her up to 20 times a day, hunted down her Facebook profile and started contacting her Facebook friends to inform them that she was in debt.
Her attorney fears debt agencies will continue to exploit Facebook to publicly humiliate people behind on payments.
"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."

3 comments:

  1. when was facebook not part of the system and who convinced anyone to even use facebook and that they have your interests in mind. in fact what is facebook, and why? in person talk, phone, email is still around..takes a little more patience as seems slower then say..texting lol facebook=a great diversion and mind/time occupier

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  2. 10:52,, I completely agree. I think its funny as hell. suck it up losers. Your on facebook AND you don't pay your bills. HA HA

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  3. It's where people who are lonely and depressed, hate their families, don't know how to read, and have addictive tendencies run off to spend hours and hours of their time.

    Some blogs are the same, particularly ones that are about the person. People on them are often OCD or have other neurotic conditions... some even dream up their high school days like on Myspace.

    Man I can't tell you how addicting that garbage really is, a diversion? It is a disease. I got hooked long ago on a gaming site, every minute I needed to look and see my posts, if they had any comments. Arguments with total strangers (mostly liars) sould occupy my mind for days and weeks. I started getting tunnel vision, and almost became tempted to say LOL in a conversation when someone made a joke.

    Myspace was bad enough, Facebook is as low as it gets. Might as well just go watch youtube clips all day long. Screw the brain up faster than television can do.

    Of course, we wouldn't get information like this without the internet. But if someone hands you a pain killer and tells you to take half a pill if your back feels like hell, don't take the whole bottle just for fun.

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