Can they legally do this?

no, they cannot do this. Your parents need to talk to WaMu ASAP, and find out if they had any involvement in this collection agency getting this information. If they didnt send this file to a CA, then your parents need to contact the attorney general's office in their state immediately. If WaMu for some reason put this account in collections, then they need to fight it out with them.

Can they call the neighbors? I find this to be awfully intrusive.

They can ONLY call neighbors or any others to locate the person they are looking for. Once they locate a good number or address, they are no longer allowed.

Well, I know that they know that they have the correct address and number for parents. My parents feel like these creeps are calling neighbors without good reason. The thing is, they called EVERYBODY else before they even attempted to contact my parents. My parents have a listed phone number, so they would have no probelm finding it without calling 4 of their neighbors that they don't even know.

CDollar, I'm with you as to not understanding why some CA's do this.

Just yesterday, my mother let me know she had received a call from a CA for me on her phone. They left this lengthy message, it was a live person leaving the message and not an auto-dialer, advising the answering machine that if it was not me it needed to hang up. Like an answering machine is going to do that! Then goes on to divulge all my personal information, stating they are a debt collector collecting a debt, all on a message on a machine. I was a little ticked off about this company doing this. Yes she might be my mother, but she does not need to know all of my personal business. If they weren't sure they had the correct number then they should have just left a brief message asking me to call them.

Besides which, any creditor has my correct phone home phone number, it has not changed in years! The only number no longer valid is my work number and that's because I've been unemployed for over a year now.

I don't know if that is the standard business practice for most CA's to contact all the possible third parties before even calling the debtor, when they do have the correct telephone number of the debtor as it has not changed and should have been provided by the creditor when the account was sent to the CA. The pessimist in me thinks they do this on purpose in order to embarrass the debtor.

Maybe some of our collectors on this forum can help us understand how this could happen? I'm really curious.

Needless to say, I fired off a validation letter, with a partial cease and desist included in it. I also advised they had gotten their first fdcpa violation with me by leaving this message on my mother's phone and I would be more than happy to sue them if they racked up any more.

I should also point out, I had not received any call from this CA prior to the message on my mother's machine. So it's not like they can claim I wasn't answering my home phone.

unemployed Ron - My concern is that it seems to me that it would be some sort of violation by calling a third party and leaving a message about trying to collect a debt. I agree with you, it seems they do it on purpose to humuliate to debtor, which is sad, but then they will try anything to get what they want.

cdollar--

no, they cannot call the neighbors. Here's what I think, and how I would argue it. If they were calling the people that live around your parents, then they must have known the basic whereabouts of your parents at that point in time--seriously, who is going to believe that, without even trying to get your parents on the line first, that they just "randomly" picked four people in the same exact neighborhood? This is clearly harassment in my mind. I would also argue that your parents' phone number is not even unlisted, so calling four people first was completely unnecessary. All they would have had to do was look in the phone book or call 411. They probably didnt even need to do that, they probably had the phone number already in their file on this debt.

I would use that as a direct and deliberate violation of the fdcpa, and I would argue it as such. A rational judge would agree with that and award in your favor.

Ron--how ya been??

In regards to your post, that IS a violation of the FDCPA. They carelessly left your personal information on an answering machine where a third party could easily access it. hell, they were calling a third party to begin with, so their action guaranteed that a third party would have access to information that they are prohibited by law from sharing with any third party. Thats a clear-cut violation, I hope she saved the message for you.

As for your question, it is not standard practice--it is 100% illegal to contact a third party when you have contact information for the debtor. The FDCPA states that the only permissable reason for them contacting a third party is an attempt to learn your whereabouts. If they already have your whereabouts, or they have contact info that they have not tried to use yet, then they are breaking the law all the way by contacting a third party at all. They are also only permitted to contact a specific third party once, so if they keep calling your mom, they are breaking the law even further. They are to attempt to contact you FIRST, using any information they have. If that info turns out to be incorrect, they can then try to find you by calling third parties.

Sky,

Thanks for the validation. I was pretty sure they were violating the fdcpa, it's always good to have a second opinion though.

Oh yeah, you can bet I do have a copy of that phone message now. That will definitely come in handy if they call my mother again, or ignore my debt validation letter. I've already sued one CA, I don't have a problem with doing it again. Not to mention filing the proper complaints with the FTC and Florida's AG's office.

I know I might owe this money. I just do not have the means to pay off any of my creditors at this time. I really wish I did. I don't enjoy being hounded day-in and day-out for money that I don't have. If I had it I'd give it to them just to get them to leave me alone.

That said though, that's really not the issue at this point. The issue is, the CA violated the FDCPA and they do need to be held accountable for it. Just as CDollar's parents need to hold the CA harassing them accountable.