What if credit card companies have been holding meetings behind closed doors for the last 6 months developing strategies to utilize social media platforms to collect more debts?
What if during the first quarter of next year you start seeing bill collectors posting on Facebook walls and sending tweets reminding you that your credit card is over-the-limit, or that you haven’t paid your bill in three months?
What if they’ve comprised a database of customers and assigned account specialists to find these customers on the web and verify that they are indeed the culprit?
Perhaps they were able to verify this by birthday. Your birthday is likely on Facebook, right?
Perhaps they verified identities based on geography. Your home state is more than likely listed on your numerous profiles, right?
Or maybe they verified the information based on job history, which is easily accessible via your LinkedIn profile, right?
What if they create a Facebook Group called Bill Collectors United or Catching Deadbeats Inc. Maybe they’ll have a Friend Feed room where they all get together and work the feeds to see what they can find about people.
Maybe they’ll find your blog and start leaving comments asking for payment. Perhaps those endless phone calls will turn into endless tweets that are sent out every hour on the hour. What if they decide to use your twitter alias to create a searchable stream of potentially embarrassing and damaging pleas for payment?
Would it be up to our beloved social media platforms to protect us and block these people from ruining our carefully crafted and hard earned reputations? What if they first infiltrate your network and blast all of this information to your friends?
Could we sue them for defamation of character perhaps? Maybe defamation of a twitter alias or Facebook wall? Defamation of a Friendfeed? How about spreading erroneous information via social media? Obstruction of social media justice?
With all of this information so readily available and posted voluntarily, we could be providing a gateway for this kind of thing to happen.
What do you think? Is something like this on the horizon?
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7 comments
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December 23, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Jeff Stern
Already happening: see this article about serving notice on facebook in australia: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28255716/from/ET/
December 23, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Angela Connor
@Jeff You know, I had a feeling that someone would come out and tell me that this is already happening. Wow! Thanks for sharing.
December 26, 2008 at 10:20 am
Richard Millington
Super congratulations there Angela. I’m so happy for you.
I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy of your book (or see a manuscript).
When will it be released?
December 26, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Angela Connor
Hey there Richard. Thank you. You and your blog have been an inspiration to me this year and I learned from you that I can blog short sometimes and be just as effective. The book will probably be released mid year. I will be calling on you for some of your experiences so expect to be mentioned in this book!
December 29, 2008 at 7:47 am
Roger
Interesting!
Angela, my take on this is that over-zealous debt collectors are going to get their wrists slapped.
It’s one thing to use social networks, which are publicly accessible, to verify personal information. However, it is entirely another to use these channels as a way to browbeat people into paying up. I imagine that there are privacy laws that govern the public dissemination of financial information.
One small error in this approach, and the company will open itself to defamation and libel suits.
It wouldn’t be long IMHO that this type of activity on the part of debtors will end up in court, at least in the US. So I expect they will tread very carefully to say the least.
December 31, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Angela Connor
@Roger: I hope you’re right about the wrist-slapping. Who knows, we may actually see something like that happen. I hope this post didn’t give them any ideas!
May 6, 2009 at 9:54 pm
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