Do you remember this post post from last December where I speculated on whether or not debt collectors were behind closed doors strategizing on ways to capitalize on social media? Here’s a question I posed in that post:

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?

Well, if it seemed a bit far-fetched back then, take a look at this story on Consumerist: Debt Collector’s Using Cute Chicks on Facebook as Bait

According to the story, a “cute chick” aka Jenny Anderson racked up about 600 friends and later announced to them all that she really worked for a company called CBV Collections.

Are you familiar with the term “skiptracer?” Well, that’s what this Jenny Anderson is apparently and there are many many more out there.

I found this story after noticing a trend in the search engine terms used to lead people to my blog. Here are a few I’ve seen in the last two weeks:

  1. “facebook debt collectors” (there are many instances of this one!)
  2. “debt collectors are going to start infiltrating social media”
  3. “Do bill collector’s use LinkedIn?”

This clearly is a topic on the minds of many. I have no idea who is conducting these searches (bill collector’s or those trying to avoid them) but I know we will see this more often.

What do you think? Is this just wrong? Or do they have the right to hunt people down by any means necessary?

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