Posted on 11/17/2010 7:01:28 AM PST by COUNTrecount
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."
Correct.
I am a mortgage lender, and see all kinds of garbage on peoples credit reports.
The laws need to changed in some ways to give consumers more power to fight back against these people.
As you said, they just want to get paid; they don't care from who, and they could care less if you even owe the money.
In some ways it is extortion. “Pay us, or we will wreck your credit”.
Facebook is free.
The last thing I’d take away from a person who has financial problems due to job loss is their phone, and the second-last is their computer or way of accessing the internet. They can’t accept a job without a phone, and thse days it’s very difficult to search for a job without internet access. Almost all applications (except as a laborer) are via computer. Paper resumes are almost unheard of now; it’s all done online.
People in my former employer’s office who are really poor have been going to the state unemployment office to use the computers there to compose resumes and look for work. But they spend so much money in bus fare to get there that they could have paid for a high-speed internet connection.
So it’s not really cost-efficient to say, “This woman should give up her $15 a month internet connection so she can pay a $400 a month car payment.” She’ll still be short $385 and she won’t be able to get a job.
If someone is a consistent deadbeat, I'm fine with that. But if someone has a major life setback, like getting laid off or becoming seriously ill, and they've always paid timely in the past, no way.
It’s kinda ridiculous. It’s not as if YOU were going to pay them!
We get calls on our home phone (land line) for the person that (presumably) had our phone number about 4 years ago. They presume I’m lying when I say that person isn’t at this number.
Delete?
It’s harder than you think, plus FB has it all retained on their servers.
Next up?
FB email.
Except when that “consistent deadbeat” is someone who USED to have my phone number. I’d be willing to guess the reason she doesn’t have that number anymore is because she probably didn’t pay THAT bill either.
Whenever I get a call like that I tell them that that the party they’d like to speak to is dead.
Then I sob.
Really loud.
Try it.
I get this too. We even get calls from the high school saying “so and so missed school today” who is the son of the person that had our number before. We also got a call from her OB-GYN confirming an appt. So, I called back and told them it wasn’t her number anymore, and they informed me that the week prior, she had given that number as her number.
My guess is, they turned off her phone years ago for non-payment, so she just gives the old number to shut them up and put something in the blank on the form.
However, there is a Florida-specific law that applies to first-party creditors. That law also prohibits disclosing the debt to third parties (with certain exceptions that don’t apply here).
It is called the Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act, under Chapter 559 of Florida Statutes.
Some Debt Collectors are scumbuckets, but the vast majority of them follow the law or they don’t stay in business. Defending lawsuits under the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act or the Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act are very, very expensive.
Most valid collection agencies train their people on how to comply with the law. They first try to encourage people to pay, then threaten them with the real consequences of not paying. They report the unpaid debt to the credit bureaus, and then may send the debt to an attorney for suit if it is worthwhile to do so.
I’d probably get you first, but you’re welcome to try.
I can relate to that. My husband is experiencing that right now. The bill collectors keep calling for "Nicole". He's tried explaining to them, but it seems to take several times with each one before they finally get it.
Your right.
Let me worry about my sense of liberty.
I’m in business, and you wouldn’t believe the deadbeats that pass off rubber checks, dispute credit card invoices for no reason, lie and cheat, do whatever, without a care in the world.
In my opinion, they cost me money. They cost me and every other business money. Yes, these are the same people who have giant flat screen TVs, multiple computers in the home, BMW’s in the driveway, and spoiled brat kids who own every video game you can imagine.
How do I know? I go into their homes and repair their AC and furnaces, and then the bill comes, and they won’t pay. I have to hire a collection agency, because, I’m not allowed to kick in their frickin door and take their big screen TV. I’m not allowed to go over there and pull the tires off their car.
Oh, I can put a contractors lien on their property, but that usually costs as much to get going as the bill itself, but sometimes I do, but then I find out, they are so far under on their property, and they owe other folks so much money, I’m on or near the bottom of the list.
Hey, I can understand when granny has to decide between medicine and heat, I do a ton of jobs as charity work, but the usual deadbeats, the ones who get to the collection stage, in my experience, are the ones who spend their money on the latest iphone, ipad, video doo-dad, escalade with custom wheels, and who dine out at red lobster instead of cooking for their kids, so you bet, when these deadbeats won’t pay my bill (which means my employees worked for nothing), it shows they don’t care about the people I employ, their families, the kids of the people I employ, the trouble I have gone through to help them to put heat or cooling in their homes. It shows that they are selfish, and not only expect a hand-out, but they DEMAND it and feel entitled to it. You bet they get a collection agency on them, and I hire the agency that gets the best results, and I don’t care if they call their brothers, exwives, children or parents, because that dead beat doesn’t care about me or my employees either. So screw em.
Don’t buy stuff you can’t afford.
The jerky ones just hang up on him, but the nicer callers patiently listen to his boring complaints.
‘I don’t care if they call their brothers, exwives, children or parents,”
Until you get sued.
Hmmmm.... I wonder. Is there criminal and/or civil charges that can be made against companies who knowingly hire unethical bill collectors? For example, if someone knows they are hiring a collection firm that illegally contacts relatives or engages in other illegal methods, can they be be legally pursued?
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