By: Jason Collazo
Guess what? Your family and friends are not the only people monitoring your activity on
happening social media sites like Facebook. And potential employers aren’t the only ones, either,
as you may have heard. Debt collectors are now scouring any social media site that people seem
to flock to pick up on what was once guarded personal information.
This has become such a huge issue of privacy that the government has had to take an outright
stand to address it. The Federal Trade Commission even hosted a workshop this past April
to unite the various fronts of government, the collections industry itself and several noted
consumer groups on awareness of this critical topic. Taken into consideration were “how mobile
telephones, email, social media information gathering tools and software platforms affect
collectors’ compliance with the law,” said Betsy Lordan, FTC spokesperson.
There is no low to what these debt collectors will do in their tactics to pry out valuable
information from their victim’s lives. There have been reports of fake names having been created
in order to elicit trust and let people “friend” them back, learning their whereabouts and other
personal details. It’s a little like those people, back in the day, who used to sort through garbage
to gain personal information on people’s credit cards, as well as bank statements and so forth.
"We have concerns about debt collectors using social networking in part because the law really
is unclear and there's such a risk of invading people's privacy," said Suzanne Martindale, who is
a staff attorney for the Consumers Union. And understandably- social media is such a new and
evolving aspect of our lives.
Reportedly, according to the FTC itself, there are more complaints issued about the debt
collecting industry than any other. Those people issuing the complaints have considerable reason
to open their mouths. There were 140,036 complaints about third-party debt collectors, as well
as in-house collectors in 2010 alone but not all of these were in regards to social media. Still,
though.
The current guidelines put forth by the government have nothing to do with social media, yet. It
only seems now to be a matter of time before they have to, though. Laws change with the times
and the times, to paraphrase Bob Dylan, are a-changing.
So what steps can you take to ensure your credit information stays in the right hands? Watch
what you put up on Facebook and out on similar sites, such as LinkedIn, which have received
similar criticisms. Martindale, the staff attorney from Consumers Union, advises to also use
privacy settings available on Facebook and others for users’ own protection. And if there should
arise a problem, people can write to the debt collectors to leave them, essentially, alone. If that
doesn’t work, a person can also contact the FTC themselves. In the meantime, though, as fun as
social media can be, keep in mind that debt collectors are having fun with it, too.
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