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Loan Information Was Sent to the Wrong Person With the Same Name as the Debtor

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  • 09-13-2016, 11:47 AM
    isitlegalmk
    Loan Information Was Sent to the Wrong Person With the Same Name as the Debtor
    My question involves collection proceedings in the State of: Ohio

    My wife has student loan debt that has been passed around from one debt collector to another over the last several years. Occasionally we'll receive a notice from this one or that one asking to arrange settlement, and threating us with things like wage garnishment, legal action, the whole song and dance. However, over the weekend we were found something that threw us for a loop.

    Another woman with my wife's exact same first and last name (different middle name) who also lives in Ohio had messaged her exactly one year ago on Facebook telling us her story. She said she had been harassed by student loan debt collector's for several months, even calling her at work and threatening to garnish her wages. She said she repeatedly explained they had the wrong person. I assume this finally stopped, as this is the only message we received from her. It must have gotten filtered into my one of the inboxes my wife never checks. The thing is, she said they have also sent her documents with my wife's personal information on it, including her social security number!

    Now I don't have to tell you how dangerous this is in this day and age of identity theft. I was shocked they violated our privacy and just handed out my wife's info without making sure they had the correct person. My question is can we purse any legal action and garner some type of settlement against the collection company who bungled this?

    Thanks!
  • 09-13-2016, 11:52 AM
    flyingron
    Re: Has Our Piracy Been Violated and Legal Recourse
    You can't sue for what might have happened. Alas I don't see any violations here and even if they were, the maximum statutory damages is only $1000.
  • 09-13-2016, 04:57 PM
    chyvan
    Re: Loan Information Was Sent to the Wrong Person With the Same Name as the Debtor
    Quote:

    Quoting isitlegalmk
    View Post
    My wife has student loan debt that has been passed around from one debt collector to another over the last several years.

    including her social security number!

    this day and age of identity theft.

    I couldn't help but laugh. Your wife's credit score wouldn't net an identity thief anything. You have nothing to fear.
  • 09-13-2016, 08:27 PM
    isitlegalmk
    Re: Has Our Piracy Been Violated and Legal Recourse
    Quote:

    Quoting chyvan
    View Post
    I couldn't help but laugh. Your wife's credit score wouldn't net an identity thief anything. You have nothing to fear.

    Funny, because I couldn't help but laugh at your short-sighted naiveté. There's a lot which can be done with a person's social security number that has nothing to do with money. You'd think common sense would tell you that.

    Quote:

    Quoting flyingron
    View Post
    You can't sue for what might have happened. Alas I don't see any violations here and even if they were, the maximum statutory damages is only $1000.

    Thanks for some intelligent feedback. However, I'm perplexed that there isn't much to be done. Laws like HIPPA were put into place in 1996 for a similar type of accountability with people's medical information (and there have been examples of people suing over these types of violations and winning). There's nothing similar in place that guarantees a right to someone's privacy or at the very least a means of holding a financial institution accountable when they're negligent with person sensitive info? As for the money, I could care less. It's not about the money, it's about the principal.

    *principle (my spell check likes to change things without me knowing it). Strange I can't edit the thread.
  • 09-14-2016, 05:00 AM
    Mr. Knowitall
    Re: Has Our Piracy Been Violated and Legal Recourse
    FYI, HIPAA does not create a private cause of action -- that is, you can't sue a provider for a HIPAA violation.
  • 09-14-2016, 05:16 AM
    flyingron
    Re: Has Our Piracy Been Violated and Legal Recourse
    You still don't appear to have a course of action that you can prevail with.
  • 09-14-2016, 05:40 AM
    llworking
    Re: Loan Information Was Sent to the Wrong Person With the Same Name as the Debtor
    Quote:

    Quoting chyvan
    View Post
    I couldn't help but laugh. Your wife's credit score wouldn't net an identity thief anything. You have nothing to fear.

    I have to agree with the OP. If an illegal immigrant (for example) gets their hands on someone's SSN, they can use it to work and for other purposes, causing all kinds of tax problems and sometimes insurance problems. Identity theft is absolutely not limited to credit.
  • 09-14-2016, 12:04 PM
    isitlegalmk
    Re: Loan Information Was Sent to the Wrong Person With the Same Name as the Debtor
    Thanks all for the info. So I'm to the crossroads where I either have to pursue this or let it go. So let me ask you this. If I did find a lawyer who thought following through with it would be worth it (and of course that's a big if), what's the best-case scenario outcome you could foresee in a case like this? I know there is no way to nail down specifics, but I'm just speaking generally. That might help me determine if I'm just wasting time.
  • 09-14-2016, 12:31 PM
    flyingron
    Re: Loan Information Was Sent to the Wrong Person With the Same Name as the Debtor
    You act as if there's some statutory damage to follow here. There's is not. That being the case, there's no other civil action here. His identity wa NOT stolen. It's not likely to be as the information was apparently sent to a trustworthy person. There's no damage. As I said back in reply #2 "woulda, coulda" is not actionable.

    Let it go. You have no actionable claim. You are wasting your time and ours.
  • 09-14-2016, 07:29 PM
    isitlegalmk
    Re: Loan Information Was Sent to the Wrong Person With the Same Name as the Debtor
    Quote:

    Quoting flyingron
    View Post
    You act as if there's some statutory damage to follow here. There's is not. That being the case, there's no other civil action here. His identity wa NOT stolen. It's not likely to be as the information was apparently sent to a trustworthy person. There's no damage. As I said back in reply #2 "woulda, coulda" is not actionable.

    Let it go. You have no actionable claim. You are wasting your time and ours.

    Thanks, I guess. I mean I found your last reply to be both helpful and annoying. It's not as if I came to the forum shouting "paging flyingron." If you felt I was wasting your time, you could have just passed the thread by and not replied again. So I grade you an A for helpfulness and a D- on people skills.
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