Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in Georgia
TITLE PAWN:
I had to make the decision to pawn the title to my car due to severe financial hardship recently.
due to an administrative oversight, the TITLE PAWN company contacted references i provided during the application process. during the contact with these people (who i would NEVER want to know i had pawned my car title, ever, ever) they identified themselves by name AND the company - which is basically named TITLE PAWN. no mystery there.
so, now they've called my contacts saying "this is Judy from TITLE PAWN looking for Ms Debtor. i am calling because she listed you as a reference, please have her call me immediately."
by doing so, she divulged information that i considered private - that i was either considering, in the process of, or had (this being the case) pawned the title to my car. she already had my phone number, address etc, so was not seeking information that she did not already have.
she said she had been calling me and leaving messages for three days, which is not true - i only received one call and one VM, to which i responded immediately and and subsequently learned of the whole fiasco.
i realize i may have forgone my rights, technically, to protect my privacy in the event the lender is ostensibly operating under the guise that they are seeking contact to get a past-due payment etc. but i am not sure this is true.
beside the fact they were acting as a result of an administrative error that is their fault, not mine. so, there was no past-due payment in reality.
the TITLE PAWN individual apologized in a half-hearted manner, and indicated she DID not divulge her company name, nor reference the purpose of the call other than to verify a "reference."
this turned out to be false. now my financial dealings are no longer private with persons whom i would never want to divulge such information.
its pretty common knowledge what is involved in a company named TITLE PAWN.
any thoughts or insight into this? what are my rights or potential remedy?
please help!
-stephanie in georgia
2 Answers from Attorneys
Stephanie,
You gave them the information. The fair debt collection practice only applies to debt collectors, not original creditors. They are allowed to contact your references. That is why you had to put them down. I understand that it was their fault and that you were not behind, but the whole reason why they call is to shame debtors who do fall behind in the hopes that they will pay up or risk losing their car.
And even if you could sue, what for? What are your damages? The law is designed to compensate you for some harm or injury to your person or property. Sure, you have some embarrassment at being in this situation. But that is not compensable. I don't think they did anything outrageous here. However, this is just my opinion and you can see if any of the other attorneys here offer a different view.
I understand your circumstances. But there are a whole range of options out there, depending on your circumstances, besides the title pawn. And if you run into further problems and don't pay, the title pawn place will take your car. So these places are to be avoided.
You chose to give them the references, which means you gave permission when you listed them.
Since they are the original creditor and not a third party collector, they also can do more things calling that a third party. Even if they were found to have broken the law, and it doesn't sound like they did, you damages would be, in my opinion, nominal, absent information we don't have.
I'm in agreement with Rachel's answer, absent more details that would affect an answer.
Title pawn lenders are NEVER okay to use. Frankly they are legalized loan sharks. They should be banned. But they are legal. You need to get out of the title pawn. You will pay many times the original loan amount. I'd suggest you talk to an attorney to explore options, which may include bankruptcy or even refinancing with a substandard lender, which although expensive, will cost far less than a title pawn. At this point, see a lawyer about the options.
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