Vanessa Romo reports that collection agencies are also using social networking sites to help track down debtors:
“It’s incredible the kind of information that people put out there about themselves,” says Gary Nitzkin, a credit collection attorney with his own firm, Nitzkin and Associates.
He says Vicknair got off easy. Some of his employees go even further than just searching MySpace, LinkedIn or Facebook.
On the surface of it, I can tell you there’s nothing illegal about it.
“My collectors and skip tracers will put their name in to be a friend to the debtor,” he says. “And then they can get into their inner circle and talk to their other friends. Find out what they’re doing. Are they going boating today — on their new sailboat? Well, guess what? We just found an asset that we can take.”
And Nitzkin says that’s legal.
Read more on NPR.
Via Privacy Lives and a reader who sent in the link.