If there is one category of jobs that has an even lower threshold of scumminess than lawyers it would have to be debt collectors. I don’t mean the actually people doing the collecting as many of them are just doing a job in order to pay their own bills. I am referring mainly to the companies that buy and sell your debts like the Devil plays poker with God.
If there is a business practice that exemplifies all that is bad about how people are tricked, conned, mislead, verbally abused, emotionally gamed it has to be the debt collecting business. For those companies anything goes but in England at least it won’t be happening on either Twitter or Facebook.
Apparently the UK Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has stepped forward and outlined new rules for debt collection companies when it comes to engaging with debtors on the two social networks.
The OFT says that in response to complaints of debt collectors harassing debtors on Twitter and Facebook the new guidelines were formulated and state that “posting messages on social networking sites in a way that might potentially reveal that an identifiable person is being pursued for the repayment of a debt.” is a no-no.
It is the feeling of OFT than debtors should not be placed under any “stress and embarrassment” and that debt collection companies should not be using social networks to publicly humiliate, or shame a debtor.
via All Twitter
