Creditors can't communicate through email??

[newstart2010]

Today I was in taking care of a collection I received a PFD contract on (yay!) and asked them to email me some stuff.  She said that as of Jan 2010 collection agents and creditors are not allowed to communicate through email with the customers.

???  

Anyone heard of this new law?  Funny enough, when I spoke to another collector last week on the phone he said the same thing but I wrote it off as BS.  Now it coems from two different collectors and I am wondering what the deal is.  I know a lot of people have been in the in rebuilding threads talking about getting communication from AFNI very recently about their accounts being removed from the CRAs.  When I emailed them all I got back was a confirmation they had received my email.  It seems they are reluctant to respond through email as well.

I do not blame companies not wanting to use email, as they can be forged so easily.

[newstart2010]

bumper

anyone else heard of this?

[MattH]

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@newstart2010 wrote:

Today I was in taking care of a collection I received a PFD contract on (yay!) and asked them to email me some stuff.  She said that as of Jan 2010 collection agents and creditors are not allowed to communicate through email with the customers.

???  

Anyone heard of this new law?  Funny enough, when I spoke to another collector last week on the phone he said the same thing but I wrote it off as BS.  Now it coems from two different collectors and I am wondering what the deal is.  I know a lot of people have been in the in rebuilding threads talking about getting communication from AFNI very recently about their accounts being removed from the CRAs.  When I emailed them all I got back was a confirmation they had received my email.  It seems they are reluctant to respond through email as well.

I do not blame companies not wanting to use email, as they can be forged so easily.

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I have not heard of such a law, but aside from the issue of forgery another major problem with email is that it can easily be intercepted in transit as it travels over the Internet.  The banks and credit card companies with which I do business all have a place on their web interface for sending and receiving messages in a secure encrypted environment.  They only use email for purposes like marketing, telling me that a payment was received, and the like; for anything containing sensitive details I get an email message that says only "you have a new message, please login to the web interface to read it."

[newstart2010]

Totally agree on the lack of security.  The thought of sending my social security info, and personal information to identify myself over the internet makes my skin crawl.  we've had our identity stolen before, its not pleasant.  and i can only wonder what some CAs would do with all that info if they get mad.

I have another agency that is local that I am going to be paying for delete in person at their office, I think I am going to ask about the law so I can get more details.  If it was a company's policy I would get it, but for multiple agencies to come forth with the same info, same date, etc seems like it is legit.