I think that privacy concerns regarding account information are valid. Others knowing about collections should not weigh nearly as much as good-faith efforts of collectors to notify and collect outstanding debt.
I think the "unless" part of the rule about contacting a person more than once should be scrapped. They should not be allowed to contact anyone (other than the debtor him/herself) more than once. If the person (usually the innocent family member) they contact to try to locate the debtor is willing to give out contact info, fine. If not, whether they have it or not is beside the point. They should not be forced in the middle. It is not their debt, or in any way their responsibility. And when collectors claim they can't give their name or a return phone number to be passed on because of privacy reasons, how can they expect someone else to share personal contact info with a stranger?
A collector contacting a consumer via email, voice mail, or text message should identify themselves and say what they are calling about (e.g. overdue ABC account) without details of amount, account #, etc. So what if a third party might possibly conclude this person has debt? Without details they still don't know anything. I personally never return any calls about "an important business matter": if you don't tell me who you are or what you are calling about, I consider it spam.
If you call in good faith to clear up an outstanding balance for ABC company, then you should say so. It's the ones that are trying to scam consumers that give as little detail as possible in hope that someone panics and fills in the blanks for them.
paythefiddler
1
I think that privacy concerns regarding account information are valid. Others knowing about collections should not weigh nearly as much as good-faith efforts of collectors to notify and collect outstanding debt.
View this comment in the discussion thread
paythefiddler
2
I think the "unless" part of the rule about contacting a person more than once should be scrapped. They should not be allowed to contact anyone (other than the debtor him/herself) more than once. If the person (usually the innocent family member) they contact to try to locate the debtor is willing to give out contact info, fine. If not, whether they have it or not is beside the point. They should not be forced in the middle. It is not their debt, or in any way their responsibility. And when collectors claim they can't give their name or a return phone number to be passed on because of privacy reasons, how can they expect someone else to share personal contact info with a stranger?
View this comment in the discussion thread
paythefiddler
3
A collector contacting a consumer via email, voice mail, or text message should identify themselves and say what they are calling about (e.g. overdue ABC account) without details of amount, account #, etc. So what if a third party might possibly conclude this person has debt? Without details they still don't know anything. I personally never return any calls about "an important business matter": if you don't tell me who you are or what you are calling about, I consider it spam. If you call in good faith to clear up an outstanding balance for ABC company, then you should say so. It's the ones that are trying to scam consumers that give as little detail as possible in hope that someone panics and fills in the blanks for them.
View this comment in the discussion thread