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I have a question. Can a collection agency call a household member and give your personal information? Such as last payment received and amount owed. A collector called today and gave my a relative information. I have heard of giving information to a spouse, but The relative never even gave any information on who they were to me. Is this legal?

Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 8:45 pm Subject:

I'm not an expert, but I believe that information is only supposed to be shared with the spouse. I'm sure that someone with more knowledge on the subject will be along soon with more information.

Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 9:57 pm Subject:

Hi smd, if your information was disclosed to your relative, then definitely it was a violation of FDCPA law. According to it...

The third-party collection agency can't garnish your wage without receiving proper judgement form the court of law.
They can't discuss the debt or your financial condition with your neighbor or relatives and can't disclose your personal information to them.
Contact your employer regarding the debt.
They can't make harassing calls to your home and workplace.

These are few of the customers rights mentioned in the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. If the collection agency is violating any of these rules, then you can file a complaint against it with the Commissioner of Trade.

However, the FDCPA is applicable only to the third-party collection agencies, the original creditors are not bounded by it.¬¬¬

Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2008 1:03 am Subject:

Dear SMD,

The concerned collection agency has definitely violated FDCPA law by sharing your information with a 3rd party (relatives in your case).

In such case, you have the right to sue that creditor within 1 year from the date of FDCPA violation. If you succeed to win the case then you can recover all sorts of money for damages along with a monetary amount of $1000. In addition to this, you can also recover costs related to court and attorneys.

You can also report this violation to
• the Attorney General's office of your state or
• Federal Trade Commission

Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2008 5:31 am Subject:

IT is important to understand who you are dealing with. Was it an collection agency or the collections department of the creditor? The reason I ask is that original Creditors are not governed by the FDCPA, thouh most will abide by that law as a standard, though they are not required to. On that note, most reasonably reputable OC's will ot discuss specifics with any one other than the consumer, even their spouse.

By the way I'm NOT saying if they are an OC they have every right to do what they did. My personal opinion is that it is unethical for ANY one to discuss my personal business matter with ANYONE with out my express consent, however, I wanted to point out that if it was the original creditor, there isn't much legal recourse.

Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2008 9:37 am Subject:

Like everyone above has mentioned, it is a violation of FDCPA for a CA to discuss the account with any third party (except a spouse). The only time they can contact a third party is to obtain your whereabouts; even then, they should not be dicussing the account itself.

Furthermore, it also becomes a violation of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Privacy Act (GLBA) for them to disclose non-public personal information about your account to any non-affiliated third party. Since account history, balances, payments, interest rate, etc are all "non-public" information, then they should not be disclosing that to anyone except their or your attorney.

Now as LCW said, OC's aren't quite bound by the FDCPA. But they are bound by the privacy laws, so they still can't discuss your account with just anyone.

FYI I attended a meeting sometime back, and we were discussing implications of the Privacy Laws. One of my examples involved accounts where the customer has somebody else (friend/mom/etc) come into the office to drop off a payment for them. Our general counsel advised that we cannot even give that person a receipt for the payment, because the receipt would disclose account numbers and current balance, which are non-public/personal information. The debtor would have to give us written instructions that it's okay to give that person a receipt; and so without those instructions, all we can do is tell the person we will mail a receipt to the actual debtor.

Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2008 10:00 am Subject:

I had a credit card, First Premier bank card at one time who disclosed information to my husband. When I questioned the lady about this she said this was legal to do in there state which is south dakota, is that right? I do not live in South Dakota.

Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2008 10:15 am Subject:

Well, offhand, the GLBA is a Federal Law. It actually makes no mention of a spouse, and whether that is a permissible reason to release information. I would tend to argue that if it is an individual account and the spouse is not a signer on it, then releasing info would violate privacy laws. For that reason, anytime a spouse calls about an account they're not on, I have them put the account-holder on the phone to tell me its okay to talk to them.

Now that may conflict with the FDCPA, because the FDCPA states: "For the purpose of this section, the term “consumer” includes the consumer’s spouse, parent (if the consumer is a minor), guardian, executor, or administrator." And so there, a CA actually can contact the spouse about an account.

Which law prevails (GLBA vs FDCPA) when they conflict with each other, I don't know.

Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 5:14 pm Subject: debt

I thought it was aqainst the law to give ANYONE's information to someone else, unless you give permission. Even when my ex and I ( when we were still married) did taxes ( filed seperately), my ex could NOT be given my information, what so ever, unless I gave him permission.

Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 9:28 pm Subject:

Dear Sdcargers,

Yes, you are quite right. A collection agency is restricted by FDCPA in disclosing any facts about your debt to a third party.

In “Facts for consumer” brochure of Federal Trade Commission, it is clearly written that Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) requires that: -

Regards,

Phoenix

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