Using MySpace Photo Of Debtor's Daughter As An Intimidation Tactic Is A No-No
from the in-case-you-were-wondering dept
Collections agencies are pretty notorious for pulling out all sorts of tricks to get people to pay up, including finding out info about family members. However, apparently one collections agency went too far in two specific ways: first, by spoofing the caller-ID to pretend to be a phone call from the woman's mother in law, but perhaps more seriously is getting a photo on MySpace of the woman's daughter and using it to suggest that something bad might happen to her:The first bad decision was to use a caller-ID spoofer to make it look like the collection call was coming from plaintiff's mother in law. The next not-smart use of technology was to access plaintiff's MySpace page, learn that plaintiff had a daughter, and to use that fact to intimidate plaintiff. There was evidence in the record to suggest that the collection agency's "investigator" said to plaintiff, after mentioning plaintiff's "beautiful daughter," something to the effect of "wouldn't it be terrible if something happened to your kids while the sheriff's department was taking you away?"The woman sued the collections agency and won, as the court found that the agency "engaged in conduct the natural consequence of which was to harass, oppress, or abuse in connection with the collection of the debt; used false, deceptive, or misleading representations or means in connection with the collection of the debt; and used unfair or unconscionable means to collect or attempt to collect the debt."
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Filed Under: collections agency, debt, intimidation
Companies: myspace
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Actually that's not so bad
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Only a fine?
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TERRORIST!!!
... Isn't that the way it's going nowadays? Might as well use the 'terrorism' card on everyone...
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Re: Only a fine?
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Re: TERRORIST!!!
They should all be flayed with AOL cd's.
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Hopfully you see the point here, a single call can quickly rack up into 5 or 6 digits. Once you lawyer up is vary common for a debt collector to settle (and you can even make them wipe the debt off your record).
The best way to pull this off is live in a 1 party state for phone taps so you don't need to tell them its being recorded.
Or, a more evil way is to say, "This is being recorded?" right at the start of the conversation. That generally catches them off guard.
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Re: Actually that's not so bad
I once took an attorney with me to small claims court, because I had a slam dunk case and I wanted the plaintiff to have to pay my attorney's fees as well as what she owed me.
It was a beautiful thing.
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Re: TERRORIST!!!
The offense sounds like it should be criminal menacing. Hopefully the DA or whomever will see fit to prosecute.
In addition, I doubt this small monitary judgement will do anything to curtail such activities.
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Re:
pay your damn bills that you agreed to pay in the first place.
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Re: Re:
I got a call from a collector claiming I owed Verizon money. I had payed them two months before I got the call. They admitted to me paying the bill in full before the collection agency got the info from Verizon. They still wanted to muscle the collection fee out of me. I let them know I payed Verizon in full, Verizon still put the paperwork threw, so if they wanted money they will have to call Verizon for it. They never called me back.
I'm not the only one I know who got hit with calls from collectors looking for money that no one agreed to pay in the first place.
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Re: Actually that's not so bad
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If you have a business that isn't dependent on your reputation in the local community and it doesn't get a substantial boost from local word of mouth, then it might be fine.
I own a small business and we do use a collection agency, but I would fire the agency in question here in a heart-beat because I know my income is completely dependent on my local reputation in my community. I don't want my neighbors bad-mouthing my company because of the reprehensible actions of a company I hired to represent my interests.
One other thought about this. With internet search engines, even for companies that aren't essentially local in character, reputation is now more important than ever.
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