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!

