Fla. Judge Lets Debtor Save Face(book)

Image by alancleaver_2000 via FlickrBoth Associated Press and the Web site, onlinesocialmedia.net reported today on Melanie Beacham, a woman allegedly $362 in arrears on a car loan, who was the target of harsh debt collection methods by Jacksonville-based Mark One Financial LLC in the opinion of  Pinellas County Circuit Court Judge W. Douglas Baird.

Judge Baird ordered that the debt collector not contact Beacham's friends or family through social media and took a dim view of the collector's use of Facebook to contact her about repayment. Beacham's attorney argued that Mark One's tactics ran afoul of Fla.'s consumer protection law that protects individuals from being harassed by debt collectors.