How To Keep Debt Collectors’ Prying Eyes Out Of Your Private Life

April 26th, 2010 by Reed Allmand

Debt collectors have gone to a new low.  They are no longer simply satisfied with calling debtors at all times of the day or night and sending threatening letters, they are now trolling the internet so they can find out debtor’s personal information.   Many debt collectors are using social networking tools such as Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and Twitter to track down delinquent debtors, “friend” them and then pry personal information out of them.  Below are a few tips on how to protect yourself from these shameless debt collectors:

1. Keep you Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter accounts set to private.  That way if a debt collector wants access to your personal information they will need to get on your friend’s list first.
2. Don’t “friend” people you don’t know.  If you’re like most people, you probably post a lot of personal information on your social networking page.  Debt collectors want access to that personal information and when you friend a stranger it is a possibility they could be a debt collector, so don’t do it.
3. Don’t list your employer’s name on your social networking site.  If a debt collector finds out where you work through your social networking site, they are one step closer to being able to garnish you wages.
4. Don’t list your address or phone number on your social networking site. Debt collectors want to get in contact with you to harass you via phone or letter, don’t make it easy on them.

While there are rules about how debt collectors are able to communicate with debtors, those rules do not yet cover social networks and the internet in general.  Until our laws catch up with our present reality, it will be up to each debtor to protect their private information from the prying eyes of debt collectors.

About Reed Allmand

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Allmand's vision is rooted in his own financially precarious childhood in Abilene "My father always had difficulty holding a job and supporting our family, so after my parents divorced when I was 12, my sister and I got jobs to help make ends meet," he recalls. "I remember what it felt like as a child to worry that our car would be repossessed or home foreclosed on."

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