Could Your New Facebook ‘Friend’ Be a Bill Collector?

There's yet another reason to be concerned about online privacy, consumer advocates say—potential bill collectors.

For those who have unpaid debts—and even those who don't but are erroneously identified as owing money—a presence on Facebook and other social networking sites can make it easy for those seeking to collect to make a nuisance of themselves.

Michael Bucello, now 34, thought he had left his long-ago unpaid college credit card bill behind. However, he says he had to hire a lawyer to help him settle with a debt collector who tracked him down via his Facebook page after his own efforts to agree to a payment plan didn't prevent the agency from freezing his bank account, reports the New York Daily News.

"A lot of creditors [are] turning to Google and other search engines to dig into people's past," attorney Brian Bromberg, who has a consumer law practice in Manhattan, tells the newspaper. "You've got to be careful because, once it's out there, there's not much you can do to take it back."

There is little regulation of collection practices on the Internet, consumer advocates say, because statutes such as the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act are focused on traditional technology.