Debt collectors target Facebook to get money back

[PGH7447]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15348205The Office of Fair Trading is warning debt collectors not to pursue people who owe them money on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

[andy07]

Looking forward to getting my friend request off brian carter , ha ha , ill be able to poke him ha ha

[flowerchild]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15348205The Office of Fair Trading is warning debt collectors not to pursue people who owe them money on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

 

Frankly, anyone who accepts a 'friend' request from a DCA deserves to be hounded due to terminal stupidity! Only friends can post on your wall where others can see the posts & you can 'unfriend' people at any time if you were silly enough to accept them in the first place! FB msgs can be easily ignored along with spam!

[ims21]

And this practice is now addressed in the OFT updated guidance....see here

 

http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/consumer_leaflets/credit/OFT664Rev.pdf

 

ims

[Bazooka Boo]

I just heard about this on R2 this morning! Incredible, I know it is old news and they have been trawling social networks for a while but to actually think they can demand money using this method is hilarious, they are clearly desperate now, "Not waving 'drowning."

I do hope whoever has my shallowfax, sharklaycard and Alliance & pester accounts start begging me on FB for money.

[coledog]

I suspect that some DCAs use Linkedin to try and identify people and most importantly where they work. Then they can make a nice friendly call to the employer's switchboard asking to speak to that person

[DonkeyB]

It works in reverse – I used Facebook to prove that the person who registered the domain ‘silverpointdelivery.co.uk’ (for a non-existent delivery company delivering ‘urgent mail’) was linked to people who worked at HFO and Turnbull Rutherford. Once rumbled, they changed their privacy settings – surprise, surprise...