Facebook makes debt collection sweet for creditors

James has been a serial debtor for the past four years.

Despite the intense pressure from his creditors; mostly commercial banks, he has managed to evade them and has never been bothered by the numerous calls from debt collectors.

He always uses the same strategy; soon after securing a loan, he changes his phone contacts, residential address and resigns from his job.

With this, he is confident of blocking all avenues of pursuit from debt collectors.

After several attempts his creditors resolved to hire collection agencies for a trace and recovery effort.

Several months of research revealed that James is an ardent user of Facebook.

The creditors then got to work, with a cute debt collector named Doreen befriending him online.

Eventually, after chats and pokes, Doreen traced James’ whereabouts, his auto bazaar business, assets, residential address and telephone contacts.

Through networking in social sites, many have secured business opportunities while others have even found fiances, spouses, employees and business partners.

Normally, users of such social sites are eager to recruit friends and pals from all corners without any fear of ulterior motive.

Any application or invitation for friendship in such social sites is treated warmly without any prejudice.

With the rate of loan defaults on the rise and the slow pace of recovery, local debt collection agencies have also moved their playing field into social sites, mainly Facebook, to rein in debtors.

This is because most of the bad debts are graded as uncollectable due to a lack of contacts and high defaults.

In either of the cases, the debtors have the means to repay but they put up barriers to the collection agency.

Sometimes, the contacts may be operational but the debtor refuses to reveal his whereabouts or even conceals his financial status.